Days of Tomorrow
by shadowwriter01
Summary: Sequel of Light in the Darkness and Darkness in the Light . Six months after their last confrontation with Dahak, Xena and Gabrielle, now together with their daughters, are going on with their lives. Thousands of years in the future, a time trembling under a great war, Ares is looking back at the past and recapitulates how all that came to be. But past and future are connected.
1. Chapter 1: Past and Future

**Days of tomorrow**

It was a long, a very long, time ago, even by my standards.

My story began ages ago, in ancient Greece, the land that had been the heart of the realm that I and my family once ruled.

Since the beginning of history, the world known as Earth had been overseen, guided and to a great part, controlled by a large number of various powerful immortal beings, made out of spirit and energy, the Gods.

These beings came to embody and represent different forces of nature, which they commanded and coordinated all over the world. They were separated into different groups and races, the so called Pantheons. These groups divided the Earth between themselves and so, they created their own territories, their realms.

They let the mortals of their respective realms worship them as the highest powers of their world and their rightful Lords and they draw their strength from their worship.

The truth was however a bit different. They needed them. While the mortals often looked to them for guidance and protection, the nasty truth was that their Gods were far more dependent on them, than it was the other way around, given that most of the different Pantheons needed the mortal's faith to sustain their own power.

There were exceptions of course, like the Northern Gods from Asgard or the Egyptians, but the most of them needed their masses of followers to stay like they were.

Yet the mortals didn't knew this. They had no idea how helpless their gods would actually be without them. And so they continued to accept them as their absolute rulers, some out of actual belief, others out of fear.

In their arrogance however, the Gods started to gradually forget one thing: they were neither the creators nor the masters of the universe….Someone else was responsible of that…

These ancient powers had always existed and they had always been there in the background.

One of them had once attacked my ancestors in the Age of the Titans, long before my own kind even took over. It was a war that ended with the complete devastation of the Earth and nearly caused the disappearance of the immortal beings.

But this battle soon became a legend and was forgotten.

For thousands of years, the ancient original powers, the One Gods, had barely been heard of, aside from a few small groups of mortals who had decided to follow them instead of the pantheons.

None of us perceived them as threat. The only hint were a number of doomsday prophecies that existed in the different realms. One of them was the so called **Twilight of the Gods.**

But none of us truly believed in them. We continued to do with the world whatever we wanted.

We thought we were ruling the Cosmos, but in truth it was them all along.

Then, finally, the old forces decided to return and the gods began to die.

It was a war they had lost before it even started.

**xxx**

I should know all this perfectly well, because I was one of them.

My name is Ares and once I was known as the God of War of the Olympian Pantheon.

But that was a long time ago.

Now, nobody worships me anymore, nobody has for thousands of years. Barely anybody these days even knows that I exist.

But to be honest, this suits me just fine. You can do interesting things when nobody is aware of your presence.

My power of course is not longer what it had once been, by far not. So I live now amongst the mortals, pretending to be one of them.

**xxx**

I still remember how my own Pantheon came to its end.

Zeus, Hera, Athena, Hades and the others, they were all long gone. They were gone when my real story had barely begun, the most of them dead by Xena´s hand or in Zeus case by Hercules.

This was just how things were. Our great reign was long over.

We were not the only ones, the Sumerian Gods, the Egyptian, the Assyrian, they were also gone.

In the end, I finally got what I had yearned for…. I became King of Olympus, with Aphrodite as my Queen. But it was an Olympus that was but the mere shadow of its former self, a home that was slowly falling apart.

We may have been in charge, but aside from some minor deities, there wasn´t really anybody left beside us and the majority of our mortal followers had already stopped believing in us at that point, their numbers getting smaller and smaller with every year.

We were king and queen of nothing. Then, a short time later, the metaphysical borders of the ancient realms of the gods began crashing down. The boundaries that had until then kept the gods from using their powers outside of their own territory, had vanished.

Then the afterlife-dimension we had created, the Tartarus and the Elysian Fields, ceased to exist. Countless millions of souls were sent to other realms.

The rule of my family ended….But life continued.

xxx

My story truly started after our last fight against Dahak and the mad god Assur.

It was the beginning of a new age.

A new religion took over, based on the teachings of a man who many thought was the Son of Light, Hope´s counterpart, born six months earlier in the same year.

I don´t know that for sure, because when Christianity- that seemed to have swallowed the entire infamous Eli cult that had a similar message- first spread over the continent, I had been indisposed for a long time.

Fully responsible for that, was a woman who had always played an important part in my life, one way or the other.

But this was thousands of years ago.

I am far older now, even older than my father had been the day he died.

It is the year 2699 CE by the new human calendar, and things have changed, far more than I had ever thought possible.

The human race is not longer bound to Earth. They have by now settled on several other planets in space. They have even met alien species, who originated from other worlds.

A few of these races are in fact old acquaintances, like the Asgardian Gods and the Egyptian Gods, who were wise enough to leave Earth ages ago.

Over the time, the mortals have developed such an advanced technology that gave them abilities that rivaled even those of my own kind, back in their time. The humanity of today is able not only to fly, but to send ships through time and space; they have weapons that can send lasers or energy blasts at their opponents, they can clone people and replace organs and body parts, they can create artificial intelligences.

Within longer periods, they are even able to terraform and essentially `create´, entire words.

All that while, my own powers had been waning even more over the centuries. It was strange sometimes, seeing and treating mortals not as subjects but as equals. But after all what I have seen I would be a fool not to admit that it is justified.

And the fool was a role I played all to often in the past, much too often for my taste.

Over the course of the centuries, I had watched and seen the world change. Some of the things I have seen have managed to astonish even me, out of all people…

But in fact, I've spent the greatest part of this time locked up and imprisoned.

xxxxxxx

_The year 43 AD_

She was standing right behind him. He could feel her presence, even if he had not been able to hear her until just now.

She was just as good as she had always been.

It was a strange meeting place, he had to admit that, but she had wanted to see him.

"Xena," he greeted her.

"Ares," she responded.

They were standing inside a crypt.

He was there to attend the burial of one of his Warlords. Some time ago that wouldn´t have been a great thing and he would not have bothered to come in person. But now, as his Pantheon had basically collapsed and his worshippers were running away in masses to new religions, he needed to show presence and entertain the few ones who were still loyal to him.

Both, him and Xena, were waiting in the half-light for the other to say something.

She didn't look visibly older than she had been eleven years ago, when she had returned from the dead by Dahak´s `grace´, neither had Gabrielle or Eve. Or Hope for that matter -but he had known about her being an immortal right from the start.

Maybe the theory he had heard about those three having been extended their lifespan for centuries wasn´t so far off after all. Well, for him it was only a good thing, having the chance to have his favorite group of girls around for longer.

Ares turned around, facing her. He knew she wouldn´t be happy about what he was going to do.

The woman before him had been many things to him during those last decades, ally, enemy, companion, friend, threat to his existence, lover. However, somehow he could no longer imagine how his life would be without her, or even the Bard, Eve, Livia, or whoever she decided she was this week, and Gabrielle´s `little girl´.

"I know what you are planning Ares," Xena told him.

He knew exactly what she was talking about. During those last years he and Aphrodite had been watching their godly powers diminishing more and more as the numbers of their followers became smaller and smaller. And slowly they became truly scared. Would this be their end? Or would they just be reduced to pathetic, powerless beings, helpless against anyone who hated them?

But during that time he also realized one thing, despite his lack of followers, the presence of war and battle was still restoring his powers, at least to some extent.

It was over ten years ago that the borders between the realms crashed. While his powers were now far lower as they had originally been, at least now he was able to use them everywhere on the planet, even at places that originally belonged to other Pantheons. So in the end, the entire Twilight of the Gods might have at least one good aspect about it. For him, it was also a chance.

He could now spread war further than ever before and he would.

He could bring the Roman Empire to collapse, he could urge the countries they had conquered to raise up and rip both the Romans and each other to pieces. Egypt or Britannia for example would be all too eager to rebel, he could turn the powers of the West and the East against each other, the Greeks against the rests of the Persian Empire, once again, why not? India against Chin, maybe. Both would have been out of his reach before, but now...

He would throw the continent and the entire planet into the greatest war the world had ever seen. And all that carefully staged, to restore himself to his former glory and simply to survive, he silently told himself.

"I'll do what I have to do Xena," he said to her.

"On the cost of how many lives?" she wanted to know.

"Do you really want to know?" he responded, "as many as necessary."

"You can not do that," she told him.

"I can not do that?" he asked angrily. "Look at me, I am the God of War and I am slowly dying, all thanks to you."

"You don´t know that," Xena replied.

"I know enough. Me, Aphrodite, Cupid and Hermes, we are all what is left of our kind because of you. You've slaughtered the others. And now we are getting weaker with every month. In a few years, we will be helpless, at everyone's mercy and you know all too well how many people hate us. I am doing what I have to do to ensure our survival and if it costs the lives of a few million mortals, **so be it**."

"This is your last word? she asked him.

"Yes."

"So you are still the same old Ares, even after everything that happened."

"Don´t come me like that Xena. You have no right to criticize me, not after having killed all the others. You have no right."

"And since when did you start to care about them? You've tried to kill them yourself more than once if I remember it correctly."

"Since I 've started to realize what it means to lose your family," he told her. "You should know that as well."

"Okay," she said, lowering her head.

"You won´t try to stop me?" he asked.

"What would I be able to do?" she questioned.

"Xena," he whispered, "...I wish it didn´t have to be like this...you know what you mean to me."

"I know," she answered, "this won´t change anything between us."

She slowly moved closer to him and moved her arms around him. Then she kissed him.

He was surprised… He had never thought she would do that after everything she had found out. But maybe she realized that it wasn´t personal, not meant against her.

Then he felt the sting in his back.

She had stabbed him, he realized, she had caught him off guard like this and stabbed a dagger in his back. Moments later, he felt the pain all over his body, a slow, immobilizing pain. He was not longer able to move a limb.

He knew this effect…Hope´s blood, that's what it was- not enough to kill a god, but enough to completely disable him. Slowly, he felt the last of his strength being drawn from him.

"I am sorry Ares," Xena told him, "but like you said, I do what I have to do." she said while she laid him into the still open sarcophagus behind them.

**xxx**

A few minutes later, Xena stepped outside the crypt where she was greeted by another figure.

"Have you done it?" Gabrielle asked her. She looked nearly exactly as she did when they met for the first time, all those years ago. Even her hair, that she had worn short for a few years, was long again, like that of her daughter Hope, since the time Xena had last returned to life.

"Yes," Xena replied. "I wish I didn´t have to, though."

"So do I. Believe me, Ares had grown on me over the years. But we couldn´t let that happen."

"I know. Come on, we have to seal this crypt," Xena told her.

**xxxxxxx**

I spent nearly two thousand years trapped in that crypt. It wasn´t until the late 20. century when I was finally released.

At one point, I made an attempt for freedom during the time known as the 2. World War, but unfortunately, one descendent of Xena was around to stop me. Still it was in a strange way, a good feeling to see her. The younger one was a mirror image of her ancestor.

It wasn´t until a few decades later when I was finally free for good.

I finally returned…. to a new world.

**xxxxxxx**

_2.667 years earlier, Ancient Greece_

It was six months ago, six months since Xena had returned to life, since their last confrontation with Dahak, since Lucifer had become his vessel, since they had stopped Assur.

Since then, they spent most of the time traveling over the land, without clear aim or destination, ocasionally helping people against various threats. Their small group consisted currently of Xena, Gabrielle and their two daughters, Eve and Hope.

Gabrielle´s and Dahak´s daughter had sided with them over her father during their last confrontation, admittedly to everyone's surprise. So far, Hope had been peaceful and loyal to them. But sometimes, Xena just couldn´t help fighting down her distrust.

It was quite ironic, she knew, since she didn´t have a problem with the presence of her own daughter Eve who had killed thousands of times as many people. She remembered all too well Dahak´s accusations of hypocrisy against her. But that didn´t change anything about her feelings. Maybe she would come to terms with Hope sooner or later.

During the half year since their last great battle, they met once again with Hercules and Iolaus after they had made their visit to their hometown as they had planned. Like they had thought, barely anybody they had known was still around.

Their old friend Jason had died. His grave was next to the one of Hercules' mother. A few months later they met up again with Xena, Gabrielle and the others like they had planned.

Hercules and Hope surprisingly seemed to get along with each other quite well, maybe because of some similarities in their background. Xena remembered that Gabrielle had compared them with each other all those years ago.

The two Olympians visited them as well.

Xena, Gabrielle, Hercules, Iolaus, Aphrodite, Eve, even Ares and Hope, their last mission and the things they had gone through had somehow welded them together as a group.

They all spent several days and nights together until they went their separate ways once again, at least for the time being.

At the moment, Xena and the others were on their way to a village that- according to the latest news- was being terrorized by a warlord.


	2. Chapter 2: War and Memories

**Chapter 2**

It was the year 2699, the far future from the point where this story had originally started.

It was a time of war.

But it was a war that was quite different from any others that had taken place in the past. This one wasn´t limited to a single country or a couple of them or to a continent or even to a single planet. Here the fighting spread over entire systems.

It was a war that was spanning the stars.

So yes, at first, it was a good time, at least for Ares.

The by now ancient God of War had been quite excited about the prospect, at least in the beginning. But not anymore, not when he finally realized the full scope of what was happening.

During the last six centuries, the human race and their world had changed more than ever before in their history. Humans or mortals, as Ares sometimes still called them, had settled on around two dozen planets outside of Earth itself.

All in all, there were 23 populated worlds in many different star systems now, not included their home-world, whose size ranged from small settlements of only a few hundred colonists, to large inhabitated planets with hundreds of millions of citizens.

The first colony had been on Mars of course. It was quite funny actually, he was able to visit and walk around on a planet that was named after him.

They also made contact with several other species that existed out there in space. Sometimes it was a contact of the positive sort and sometimes it was not.

The mortals had truly come a long way, even Ares had to admit that. It was a bad thing however that this came seemingly hand in hand with the decline of the gods, at least from his point of view.

He remembered how everything happened.

xxx

After being finally freed from the crypt where Xena had locked him, he awoke in the age of the late 20th century. It was a strange new world for him that he didn´t really understand.

He quickly realized that his powers had dismished even more at this point. But it was enough for him to survive. In the end he was reduced to not much more than a normal man at this point.

But he still had his immortality and he had at least some of them left. His energy was so low however that he could only use it from time to time on a higher level. For the most part he was he was only able to do some, as they would call it in these days, `circus-tricks´.

Yet he was not completely helpless and he had just enough of his powers to survive all those drastic changes, decently.

Luckily, he was able to come to an `agreement´ with the group of mortals who had freed him. Those people were working for a company, as they called it, that proved to be quite interested in his stories and took great efforts to find his `final´ resting place. By what he had been told, they were a new form of organization under the mortals, based mostly on financial interests.

They explained to him the ways this new era worked and taught him how to cope with it. In exchange he helped them and especially the man that were working for with some `small tasks´, by using his now dismished powers. In other words he agreed to helped them bring down their competition and improve their own position.

Their demands however seemed to get more and more ridiculous with every time they asked something of him. At first, they wanted him to take the shape of an officer from a rival company to discredit him, then they wanted to steal some important inventions, to do some spy work for them and finally they asked him to murder an important employee of their greatest competitor.

Slowly, they started to treat him like a mere pawn, **him** a god. He was slowly getting the impression that these mortals had no real idea who they were dealing with.

Still it was a deal to their mutual benefit, at least for as long as Ares still needed them. Of course as soon as he had learned enough, he got rid of them all and was on his own once again.

He remembered how good it felt to have the head the company, the C.E.O, levitating over the edge of his own building and how the man had been begging for his life, just before he had let him fall. It had been a satisfying feeling, he admitted.

Ares had made sure that everyone who knew about him was either dead, loyal alone to him or intimidated enough to keep his mouth shut for good.

He was back. From that point on, he did everything that he could to regain some of his influence over the world.

What he didn´t know however, was what had happened during the centuries when he had been imprisoned, at least until some years later.

True, the rough shape of things he could take out of history books. But there was no personal information there.

There was much to find about all kind of historical events, inventions, the progress of mankind and warfare and many other things. But there was nothing about the gods and certainly nothing about the things that truly interested him.

It was at this time when he met someone, he had truly though he would never see again, his brother Hercules. The half-god had actually survived for thousands of years and was still walking this world.

Who he had also met again, a short time later, was Aphrodite. She had been around the entire time. But just like him, she had become incredibly weak, merely existing in the background and hiding herself.

His sister had been more than happy to see him again. As it seemed Xena and Gabrielle had never truly told her what had happened to him, only that they had no choice but to `deal´ with him. Of course they wouldn´t have given away his location to Aphrodite, if they had wanted him locked away for good.

From both her and Hercules, he was able to get a quite good accord about what had happened in his absence.

By what they had told him, Xena, Gabrielle and also Eve had went on living for a long time after he was gone, for a very long one. But in the end, even their long existence here had come to an end.

Hercules told him that his friend Iolaus had returned to Heaven shortly after they last met, this time for good. Despite their separation though, they are still able to talk to each other now and then.

They were all gone, everyone they had known, except Aphrodite, Hercules and himself.

Even Gabrielle´s immortal daughter had left this plane of existence by now. Supposedly, at least according to Aphrodite, she was in the same place as Iolaus- a quite ironic fact given her heritage... Of course he didn´t know that for sure and since when was his sister a reliable source of information anyway? It was also possible that she had just given up her body once again and now existed as a formless being somewhere, at least it was possible, he speculated.

For long, Aphrodite had believed that she was the last of their kind, until she had been reunited with her brother. Yet she was still very weak.

Of course, he sarcastically thought, both their powers had been waning for thousands of years. Back then, he had contemplated to start a world-war to renew his. What was Aphrodite supposed to do, urge the mortals to hold mass-orgies?

Their powers were only a pale shadow of what they once had been, but at least they seemed to be relatively stable now, without decreasing even more.

That might have meant that their existence was saved, at least for the moment, even if they would clearly never again become the force they had once been.

Ares watched the centuries passing by and the mortals grew more and more powerful.

**xxx**

Now they were controlling many worlds and were in contact with a line of other species.

Sometimes these contacts didn't turn out so well- for instance the one with the race that had the habit to hunt for humans and other alien species for sport. Even with them however, they were now on relatively peaceful means, as far as that was possible with them.

There had also been other problems however. One of their colony-words, named New Agaia or something, quite ironically in fact, had fallen to a political coup of a extremist party some years ago and was now being ruled by a dictatorship. Needless to say that the relationship with the other human planets was not exactly good.

But for Ares, this was actually a good chance. From the background, he urged both sides to go to war with each other. Despite his hopes however it stayed a relatively minor conflict.

The luck was not truly on his side, until a few years before, at least he thought so.

There had been another contact back then with another alien species, but this one turned out much different than any before. The Econa, as they called themselves, were a race of self-proclaimed superior beings, who thought themselves better than anyone else. Humans would not be the first species they had attacked and tried to enslave. War was nearly unavoidable from the point on they had met.

Ares for his part, was in glee.

The Econa attacked immediately, but were thrown back relatively quickly. As it turned out, the humans had formed an alliance with some of the other alien-species they knew, efficiently convincing them that the Econa were a threat- that was obviously not hard- given their past history. It was a smart move, Ares admitted.

Next, they began securing their borders to protect themselves from future-invasions. Yes, the mortals had learned well, he thought.

It lasted a few more years till Ares finally got the war that he had been craving for so long. He achieved this through one single action; he caused the leadership of New Agaia to forge a pact with the Econa. Despite their nearly chronicle hubris, the wannabe conquerors accepted this offer all too eager as they fully realized the opportunity.

Earth and its allies were now being attacked from two directions at once and the war finally truly broke out.

It was fantastic, a conflict of a size that even he would have never imagined. Entire worlds were going to war against each other, entire races were fighting, humans against Econa, humans against humans, Econa against everyone else. Cities were quickly wiped out, entire fleets of space-ships destroyed, on both sides, armies on dozens of planets were decimating each other….The fighting was spreading over the known cosmos; a true paradise, at least for him.

Now, after four years of conflict, the Earth-faction had once again gotten the upper hand and their enemies seemed to be loosing. Not that it mattered; the only thing that held any importance for him was the** war** itself.

At this time however, something else happened, something that he would never had taken into account, an old, very old, enemy had returned, Dahak.

It all started on a seemingly harmless day, as harmless as it was possible in this time, in the city known as New York on Earth, right in front of the headquarters of the central government, formerly known as the UN.

It was one single man, but he wasn´t a man like any other, not anymore. He was no longer a normal human being. His eyes were colored in a pale, empty white and on his face there was an demonic grin.

As he was standing on the plaza, he was shouting warnings about his master who was about to come and without warning he draw a gun and started to fire at random people, seemingly without reason or visible motive. He killed five bystanders until he was finally shot himself by security personel.

This single incident shocked many people, but given that they were right in the middle of an interstellar war, it didn´t shook them up **too** much. They had other problems to worry about.

Still, it wasn´t over, by far not. During the following months, more and more of these beings appeared. Whenever they were seen, terror and chaos followed them. At first there were only individual attacks. But soon, as their number grew, they started to become organized. They were leading assaults on both sides of the war, terrorist attacks on both civilian and military targets and recruiting new members for themselves and now, finally, they were threatening to overrun entire colony-worlds. Everyone who joined their ranks became like them.

The government on Earth had no explanation. At first they thought it was some sort of weapon from the enemy. But it became soon clear that the other side was being targeted just like them.

Ares was one of the few individuals who understood what was happening. He had seen these effects before, thousands of years ago. It was Dahak, and those people were under his influence.

They called them the `Army of the Possessed´. Somehow it was fitting.

Ares admitted to himself that he had lost control of the conflict that he had initiated, if he could actually brag about having been in control in the first place.

Dahak, the One God of Darkness, was one of the ancient original forces in the universe, the powers that even the gods feared, the ones ultimately responsible for their descent and destruction.

He was once again meeting with Hercules to find out if he knew something. As it turned out, he was indeed aware of what was happening. Actually, he had much to tell.

As it seemed, his brother had actually run into Dahak and his followers a few times while he was out. According to Hercules, Dahak was getting active on Earth roughly every thousand years, starting long ago with Zarathustra or even earlier. Back then, it was his wars against the gods and his other plans that threatened the world.

By what Hercules told him, he had also made some half-hearted attempts during the 10th century. It was mostly about a cult that was recruiting and corrupting people. Their attempts however were easily twarted.

At the end of the 20th century then, he had a few fights with a group calling itself the `Knights of the Dark One´, who were worshipping Dahak and furthering something that they called the `Great Plan´. While he had been able to stop their activities, he was never able to find out what exactly that meant.

That was 700 years ago. Now he was back. Strange however was one thing, by his own schedule, he was 300 years early.

Whatever the reason, it probably meant that this time he would be more serious.

xxxxxxx

_Ancient Greece_

Xena and the others reached the town they had been looking for.

And they had found out, the warlord they had heard of- Meneus was his name- had been terrorizing the people of this region for some time now.

Only a short time after they arrived and began to settle in, they had already seen the first of it.

They had barely entered the inn when they heard the first of the soldiers approaching. At least that meant they wouldn't have to waste time searching.

Xena turned her back to the inn-keeper, who was still busy starring at Gabrielle and Hope and walked outside.

She was greeted by a group of armed warriors. Their obvious leader was a large man, nearly in the size of Hercules, he had brown hair and was wearing a short beard and a mustache.

He was holding a speech in front of a crowd of people. It was the usual thing, he was threatening them and demanding money and supplies for his troops. If he wouldn't get it, he would set their town on fire, sell their daughters into slavery, yes, the usual thing.

She saw that Gabrielle, Hope and Eve had come out behind her. They were backing her up.

"Are you Meneus?" she asked him.

"Who wants to know that?" he responded.

"The name's Xena," she stated.

"The legendary Xena, really?" the man asked grinning, it was obvious by his tone fall that he wasn´t quite convinced of her identity. "And what do you want from me?"

"That is easy, leave these people alone," she said, "and tell your men to withdraw from this town, now."

"Oh I see," he chuckled, "the great Xena, if you even are that, just throws her name around and then entire armies flee from her. Do you know something? I think you are not nearly as though as you act. You may have once been a powerful warlord, but now you are only living on from your old reputation. But that won´t work with me.

Kill her," he ordered three of his men.

"Do you really think so?" Xena asked him with a grin on her face.

She heard how Gabrielle and Hope were preparing themselves behind her. Would it even be necessary? she asked himself. Compared to opponents like Dahak, Assur or even Callisto this guy was clearly a joke, she thought smiling.

The soldiers attacked nearly at the same time. Xena however was faster, far better trained and more talented. Within only a few seconds she disarmed one and wounded the two others, who were now lying on the ground.

The warlord became now visible angry and attacked her himself. But she outmaneuvered her new opponent quite easily as well. A few moments later, he too was lying before her and had her sword at his throat.

Behind them, the rest of the soldiers were starting to move to assist their leader. But before they could even draw the swords out, they were ripped out of their hand and floating in the air before them.

"Maybe you should think about this again," Hope said to them. "You don´t truly want to fight us, do you?" she asked them.

She stepped forward while holding a glowing ball of fire in both her hands, leaving no question about who was responsible for what had just happened.

At this point the soldiers began to panic.

"What is that? A Goddess?" one of them asked.

"A demon?" a second one yelled.

"Maybe you want to find out?" she stated with a grin.

"Lets get out of here," one of the men screamed. "Run for your life ! " another one shouted from the top of his lungs.

They were all only getting away now as fast as possible. The Warrior Princess was fearsome enough, but with her obviously super-natural companion on top it would have been madness to stay one moment longer.

Their leader however was still lying in front of Xena.

"Like I told you," she said, "you better leave this place."

He just nodded with his head, defeated, before she allowed him to stand up and he followed after his men.


	3. Chapter 3: The edge of space

**Chapter 3**

_The year 2699_

There were two wide ranged formations of large metallic objects, space-ships. They were moving in the orbit high above a green shimmering groups of ships were involved in a heated battle with each other.

It was the home-world of the species of infamous conquerors and militarists called the Econa. They were known as the initiators of the latest interstellar war that was shaking this part of space.

The ships of the two fleets were firing both regular and nuclear missiles at each other.

It was now for over a month that this world had been under siege. The human forces had cut off the planet from all neighboring star systems.

All around the globe, their troops were in this moment targeting fascilities and military installations and wiping them out. By all rights, the Econa species had already lost the war at this point.

And they were not the only one. The human renegade colony New Agaia had allied itself with them in this conflict. Now they were in exactly the same situation. Like this one, their planet was surrounded by enemy forces and locked away from the outside.

The human fleet was standing in the orbit of both worlds of their enemies and their defenses were quickly breaking down. It was the end.

The war might have started with an all-out attack on the human inhabitated worlds, but it quickly turned around after the first year and the invaders were pushed back more and more. Both, the Econa and their allies were from then on forced to retreat. On their way however they left death and destruction over more than a dozen star-systems. On their retreat they leveled entire cities, ordered mass-executions of prisoners and caused as much damage as they were able to.

Now, after nearly four years, the war against them was as good as won.

But at the same time another threat had appeared, the mysterious so called Army of the Possessed. In the beginning they were relatively few and more considered a minor nuisance. But they had grow quickly and spread over the colony words. If things continued like this the first colonies would fall to them in very short time.

The number of the dead was already in the hundreds of millions and it was still increasing.

There were rumors going on that someone had contacted the government and provided them with information, that the `Army´ was only a symptom of another menace, one more dangerous than anything before. Nobody however knew the identity of this informant or how he had gained this knowledge. All this however was only a rumor.

In this moment, on board of the flagship above the Econa home-world, the Admiral in charge of the human fleet was watching the ongoing battle. Unknown to him, his movements were closely mirrored by the commanding officer of the other fleet, standing over the New Agaia colony.

What **nobody** was aware of however, was that at the same time, a force from beyond this universe was reaching out to them. While they were watching the fighting, it was talking to them and they were hearing it´s voice in their subconsciousness.

It was saying similar things to both of them. It told them to change their orders for these planets. It told them to destroy, to take revenge, to wipe out their enemies now that they had the chance. The difference was, one of them listened, the other resisted the influence.

While above New Agaia, things staid as they were and the attack only concentrated on military targets, the commander of the other fleet above the Econa world suddenly told them to change their plans and to burn down the cities of the planet. Most of them refused, knowing that it was illegal, against their orders and an act of mass murder. But a few of them, hating the Econa just as much as their commander, actually did it.

At least three towns were hit in a single strike. Millions died in mere seconds. The Admiral was watching in glee as his hated enemies were burning.

As a group of soldiers arrived a few minutes later to arrest him, they saw in horror that he was not longer the same. His eyes had turned white as sheets, they realized before one of them lifted his weapon and gunned him down.

xxx

At a place beyond this universe, the being that was sometimes known as Dahak was laughing.

xxxxxxx

_A few weeks later, somewhere in space_

He had been thinking about all that for a while now, the things and events that had led him to this point.

He was now on a space-ship, somewhere in a nearly empty part of space, on a `mission´.

The time had come, he thought.

"Doctor Martius," one of the soldiers addressed him, "here is the information you had been asking for."

The man gave him a data carrier which he took casually in his hands and began to read the content. It was a summary of the most details regarding their current task.

"Thank you," Doctor Alex Martius, A.K.A. Ares, said to the man who had no idea who he was actually dealing with.

Only a handfull of people here knew who he really was, at least not the regular soldiers, not yet. He was using a fake identity to work with the mortal forces.

After he had realized the full implications of Dahak´s return and considering the fact that he, Hercules and Aphrodite were now actually completely alone, he had revealed himself to the government on Earth. Of course they didn´t believe a single word he was saying at first and thought he was crazy, until he showed them some of his abilities.

To his luck he had been able to gain some of his power back during the last time. The war had actually restored some of his old strength. It seemed that the war he had started had ultimately fulfilled it´s purpose after all. The bad part was that it served their enemies even better.

It was quite ironic actually. Now, for the first time in thousands of years, he was thinking that he was starting to gain an actual understanding of what exactly Dahak was.

Ares admitted that he had learned much during these last centuries. Yes, and most of it was from the knowledge the mortals had achieved over the ages, he admitted to himself.

Dahak, that was only a word, just like Ahriman or Satan, what he and his vessel Lucifer were called in these days.

They barely described what he truly was, a universal mind, a single intelligence that lived in every particle of this universe, all possible parallel worlds and beyond that, above even the multiverse, existed in the sum of the parts of the cosmos and whatever was outside of this reality. A single being that spanned, formed and created the entire existence. He was actually `God´ himself, like the mortals of this time imagined him.

But Dahak was only the dark, the destructive, side of this being, a shadow to the Light. Ares knew he was a insect that was standing against a giant. He realized that now. That was the reason he needed allies, everyone he could get.

He was still reading some of the information his **mortal** allies had supplied him with. For the most part it was an assemblance of more or less usefull, but it was nothing overly interesting either, until he saw the last page.

Now he was starring in shock at the writing and especially at the pictures that came with them. He could barely believe what he was seeing.

It was the file of one of the persons involved in their current mission. His eyes were still stuck on the portray of the woman it described.

_It couldn´t be,_ a part of him thought. But as long as he was looking at it, the picture staid the same. _Why now?_ he asked himself. _Why of all times now?_

Ares turned around to one of the other soldiers. This one was wearing the uniform of a lieutenant. This one wasn´t a regular mortal either. His name-tag said `Michael Harrolds´, in fact however he was nobody else than his brother Hercules.

Their current `mission´ was on the first look nothing extraordinary. The contact to a space-station that was located at the edge of known space had broken down. To that came that Econa forces had been detected in the same sector, some of the ones who were still around after the fall of their home-world. These scattered remains of their enemies were still running attacks on sparsely defended places sometimes. So it was likely that they were also responsible for the broken contact with their station.

But Ares knew there was more about this. It was not only that the installation had gone missing. Since then, not a single ship had been able to even reach that part of space. The were just not coming through to their destination an landing instead in star systems close by. It was nearly as if a invisible barrier cut off this area from the rest of the galaxy.

Something or rather someone was disturbing the hyper-space on a great scale to keep this ships away. And maybe that was not even the entire purpose.

He knew it was Dahak, he could feel it. There was an anomaly out there, warping time and space itself, over a distance of light-years. It had to be him.

This was also the reason Ares was on board of this ship. He had found out that he was able to counter the effect to some level and overcome the barrier in hyper-space. With him on board they would manage to make it to the missing station, whatever awaited them there.

But right now, he had someting else on his mind. He turned around to Hercules.

"Take a look at this," he said to the half-god. Ares showed him the file he was just reading and after a few moments, he as well had an expression of surprise, however not nearly as much as the war-god´s. It had actually been Hercules who had asked the fleet-command about the detailed information about the crew and personell of the station in the first place.

Next to the text, there was a picture of a dark haired woman of around thirty.

"Doctor Samantha Maynard," Hercules red the name under the portray. But they both knew perfectly who this face belonged to in their minds.

"Xena," Ares said.

"This can´t be her," Hercules replied.

"I know that. She is long dead and gone. Maybe this is a reincarnation or simply or simply a descandant. It wouldn´t be the first time I met one who just happened to look exactly like their ancestor."

"Yes maybe," the half-god told him. He admitted he himself had seen this phaenomenon before more than once.

"What I don´t understand is that a double of Xena would appear at this point, just as we are about to face Dahak again. Why now of all times? Is this fate or something?" Ares asked, more to himself than Hercules.

"To be honest, I have no idea," he responded.

"She was one of the scientists who were working on the station," Ares told him.

"And she was on board when **it** happened," Hercules concluded.

"Yes." Ares couldn´t help to feel somewhat uneasy about the thought of Xena´s whatever in the hands of Dahak´s followers. What was the meaning of this? he asked himself.

"Hercules, Ares," someone adressed them. It was by their real names, so it could only be one person.

Just like the greek half-god he was wearing a uniform and just like with him it was not much more than a disguise. He was another one of their allies.

It was a long time ago that they had found out that some of the old Pantheons of gods from Earth had left the planet and survived until today. He was one of them. While like the other two he was using an alias, his true name was Thor, also known as the God of Thunder of the North.

"You should get ready," he said to them. "The soldiers had just told me that we will arrive in a few minutes."

Originally he and his kind had settled on a different world centuries ago and decided to stay out of the affairs of the mortals, at least for the time being. As they realized that Dahak had returned however, they showed themselves once again to the humans on Earth and just like Ares and Hercules, offered to assist them.

Dahak had threatened their existence once before, back in their old age. Back in that time he had used Thor´s jealous brother Loki to cause their destruction. Thor and Hercules had been working together to stop their plans. They had however never found out that it was Dahak who was behind the entire plot until later.

Now, after learning of not only his involvement back then, but countless other of his activities over time, alone the news of his return was reason enough for them to be highly alarmed.

Thor was, as the best warrior of his Pantheon, accompanying their mission. Officially they were members of a special-force unit, that in fact consisted of gods and half-gods.

At the outside their ship had just arrived in the system where the space-station had been located.

They all were preparing themselves, mortals and immortals alike. Aside from their super-human power, Hercules and Thor were also wearing modern weapons. Ares, who had taken the guise of an civilian consultant, quite ironic since out of this three he was actually the God of War, was only carrying a hand-gun. It was not that he needed it anyway. It was mostly for show.

They stepped out in the corridor.

Many of the men were given them, especially Thor, somewhat strange looks. It was not every day after all that you saw a supposed elite-soldier running around with a giant hammer on his side. But nobody said something.

It was already known under the crew that this three were, mildly spoken, somewhat eccentric. But they had also seen enough of their abilities to respect them.

They were coming closer to the station. As they had already suspected, they were not alone. A Econa ship was residing in a close distance to it. The other vessel opened fire on them as soon as they got into range.

xxx

From beyond the brink of this reality, Dahak was watching their approach. He knew they had no chance. They would all die.

Maybe he was taking a risk here, he admitted, as he had allowed Ares to reach the station. He, Hercules and Thor, three of his most dangerous opponents in their dimension, especially Hercules who crossed his plans many times before. It was the chance to get rid of all three of them at once.

While a small part of him concentrated on the incoming ship, something else suddenly caught his attention, from another point of the multiverse.

A universe had just collapsed. This happened from time to time.

In that particular reality, he remembered, he was winning. Darkness was dominating over Light and existence itself was being reshaped by his designs. But somehow these universe didn´t seemed to be able to withstand the pressure of his growing power and crashed into itself.

For a short moment he was overcome with something analogous to doubt. Was complete destruction everything his powers would ever led to? Would he never be able to form the world in his image since it would be nothing left? Were his plans doomed to failure from the beginning?

But he wrote it off very quickly. If that universe was not able to survive under his power, then it wasn´t worthy to.

This universe he was concentrating on and it´s inhabitants were stronger. They would survive under his influence, under his rule and thrive and he would have a world of darkness.

xxxxxxx

_Ancient Greek_

Thousands of years in the past the soldiers of the warlord Meneus had just reassembled after their humiliating defeat in one of the towns that their leader considered to be part of his territory. It was especially shameful, at least from their point of view, since the ones responsible for it were two women.

Of course one of them was the infamous `Warrior Princess´ Xena and the other was a supernatural being. But they were still women. So none of them was particular happy, least of all the warlord himself. What also made him angry was the fact that his men had run and left him behind. But unless he wanted to punish half of the army, there was not much he could do.

And right after being defeated in this way, he didn´t want to risk turning his own men against him.

Still, they had been made fools of. He would like nothing more than to cut the throats of this broads. With every step he took he was nearly bursting with anger. He wanted nothing more than revenge.

Of course it didn´t do much to lift his mood as they met someone else. At the side of the road stood, what else could it be, another woman.

Just like Xena and the others, she was looking oddly confident, given that she was standing before an entire band of armed men.

"Greetings Warlord Meneus," she said to him, "I have heard much about you."

"Who are you," he responded, "and give me one reason why I should not give you to my troops or turn you my personal slave."

"Oh, I am sure I can think of many reasons," she told him.

To his horror he realized that her eyes had begann to glow in a bloody red.

* * *

**Side-note:** The name New Agaia is of course based on the Agais, the greek half-island.


	4. Chapter 4: Deal with the Devil

**Chapter 4**

_Ancient Greece_

The Warlord Meneus was a very lucky man or at least he was convinced that he was. Just yesterday he had been beaten and humiliated and now he was possessing powers that he would have never dreamed of….And it all started with meeting this woman the day before.

Now he was standing again in front of the same small town as the day before. But this time he knew he had a true chance. It was time for his revenge.

At first he had been beyond shocked when the woman he and his men had met the other day turned out to be another demon. Still it had been a good thing for him. Instead of attacking them on sight, like many of them had feared, she did something else. She had offered him power.

In return, she only asked one thing of him… not much, only to completely destroy the village where Xena had fought and much to his shame defeated him yesterday. He didn´t know why she hated the people there so much and neither did he care. Besides that, she only wanted him to pledge his heart and soul to the forces of her realm, so he basically had to change religions. It didn´t matter. He was never much for the faith charade anyway.

That and to eradicate the village. It was actually something he would do with people had hosted the Warrior Princess and her companions after all. It had been probably them who had set her up to fight him in the first place. In conclusion, he was more than happy to wipe them out. He had accepted the deal quite eagerly.

He remembered how the woman only lifted her hand and he could literally feel the power flowing into him. It was fantastic. With **this** and his men guarding his back he would take Xena and her super-natural companion with ease.

On top of that, she had promised to give him a good time in the coming night, if he was successful. That offer too was something he didn't have to think about twice. She might have been a demon, but she certainly was a good looking one.

Some of the people in the village had already seen them coming from a distance. Some of them were already panicking , running on the streets, trying to get away as fast as possible. Others were preparing themselves to fight them. Xena's example from the day before had obviously helped them gain some confidence.

Most of them had assembled around the Warrior Princess and her companions, who were standing at the town´s entrance. Some of them looked obviously confused that their opponents would actually dare to return this quickly after what had happened to them.

The fight broke out very quickly. As soon as they were in reach, Meneus gave the order to attack and to leave nobody alive. Normally, whenever he sized a place, he used to talk with the local leader first, that would quite obviously be Xena right now, make demands, give warnings.

After that demeaning humiliation however, he wanted blood, so naturally, not exchanging sharp remarks with an arrogant female warrior. He could feel her gaze lying on him, he could see her gloating face. She was mocking him and not only with her expression. After a few moments, he and Xena were clashing swords again.

"Why did you return?" she asked him smugly. "Do you really think you can do better now than you did yesterday?"

He grinned. She would see really soon….

Meneus glanced around. Xena´s companions and a group of armed villagers were fighting his men. A few of the untrained landfolk had already been cut down by the soldiers. The half-goddess however, made good use of her powers to break off an entire line of soldiers and threw them around like rag dolls. The other one, the one who looked exactly the same, was also taking on two men at once. To his surprise though, the last woman stood back and did nothing. To all appearances, she was leaving the fighting to the others…. That meant either a coward or a pacifist, he thought.

All in all, they were holding themselves quite well against his men and would probably win in the long run. But that was about to change very quickly.

He was truly enjoying the expression on Xena´s face when, with a little concentration he formed a ball of fire in his hand and threw it at her. She was barely able to dodge. But right afterwards he attacked her again. He was stronger now, by far. With a single punch, he sent her flying a few meters backwards.

Her companions had also seen what was happening and were starring at him in awe now, he realized. Good, let them see what awaited them, he thought. He continued and sent some more fire at the peasants who had dared to stand up to him. Hope was able to block some of it, but not all of the energy by far… He hit several people, a few died nearly instantly, other were standing in flames, two houses were burning. Then, he turned back to the warrior-woman lying before him.

"Now Xena, how are you feeling?" he asked her mockingly.

She stood up again and glared at him angrily.

"I don´t know who you have made a deal with to get these powers, but a weakling will always stay a weakling. But I guess now that you have received….how shall I put it…. a little `help´, maybe we can finally call it a fair fight," she smirked.

That belittling comment made him even angrier when he already was. He threw himself at her again, but this time however, in a wild rage, forgetting all about the new powers he had gained. He completely forgot that he could throw fire on her and burn her to death. All what he wanted was to cut her apart with the sword that he was now swinging at her.

Xena dodged two strikes before she blocked the third, one with her own blade. She was trying to catch him off guard and given the way he was holding himself, it was all too easy. A short time later, she had managed to disarm him and throw him down.

Somehow her little trick still seemed to work. It was enough to make a few smart comments and suddenly they loose all reason, she thought to herself.

Then suddenly they heard someone laughing. It was the voice of a woman. Moments later a figure appeared in a burst of flames.

"Ah… Meneus, it seems that your skill can not quite measure up to your reputation," the woman said. "Even with all the power I have given you, you still allow Xena to get the better of you. It is a shame really."

"You," Hope whispered as she saw her.

"So….you are the one who gave an idiot like this that kind of power? " Xena commented. "Who are you?"

"Who I am? Yes that is the question, isn´t it?" she replied.

"That is something that we would like to know as well," another voice said.

They saw that four more figures had just materialized next to them, this time in a bright gleam, Ares and Aphrodite, the two last Olympians and behind them stood Hercules and Iolaus.

xxxxxxx

_The future_

Nearly 2.700 years later, the fight between the two space-ships was nearly over. The Econa vessel was already in a bad shape and even then it would have been no match since the human ship was a newer more advanced model and better armed..

After another volley of missiles it was starting to break apart under a line of internal explosions.

Now, the troops, that included Ares, Hercules and Thor, were preparing to board the space-station. The battle at the outside had ended and some of the mortal soldiers were visibly delighted with how things how turned out. For a short moment, they thought that the worst was already behind them.

Ares however knew that it was far from over. The Econa ship had never been the problem. It was only a symptom of the true threat. What was going on there was not a simple military campaign, no matter what the mortals thought.

He could feel the dark presence all around the area, the disturbance in space that was concentrated on the station.

This space-station, he remembered, had originally been created for the purpose hyper-space research and experiments, out there, at the end of the known universe. Now however Dahak had taken it over. He was waiting for them.

xxxxxxx

_Ancient Greece_

All of them, including Xena and the others, were more than surprised to suddenly see the two gods and the heroes who accompanied them.

"Ares, Hercules, Aphrodite," Xena addressed them.

"What are you doing here?" Gabrielle asked.

"Me and Hercules had just finished one of our usual disputs," Ares said. "You know how that is." They indeed did. It normally meant that Ares had been stirring up unrest somewhere and the half-god had interfered.

"Then, we detected a foreign presence in our realm, an intruder," Ares told them, "and it seems we have found it," he stated, looking at the demonic woman.

"Yes, that would be me," she replied and gave them an inviting smile. "Hercules, Iolaus," she turned to them, "how nice to see you again."

For a second, the two only exchanged a confused look, until her appearance suddenly began to change. Her previous form of a blonde girl turned into a tall woman with dark brown hair. It was the form of Hercules' second wife, Serena. Yet they both knew it wasn´t her, but a being that had taken her form before.

"You," Hercules realized.

"You know this being?" Aphrodite wanted to know. "Who is she?"

"A demon from Hell," he replied. "We met her a short time after Iolaus returned to life. She was calling herself Sin at that time."

"Sin, Jeh, Lilith, there are so many names for me," she pointed out.

"She had released the soul of a mass murderer from Hell," Iolaus told them, "and then she offered Hercules `a hand´ to stop him by giving him powers and at the same time corrupting his mind."

"Oh yes, it is truly sad that didn't work out." she said. "But powers, no matter of their nature can only sway someone in one direction or the other. In the end, everybody has to make the decision by himself. Hercules chose a different path… And what a loss it was!"

"You mean she did something similar to what she did to him?" Xena asked, pointing at Meneus, who was now kneeling before her.

He had just been about to stand up again a few moments earlier. But now, with the appearance of two gods and Hercules on top of that, he was like frozen in place.

"Yes, this is precisely her style," Iolaus commented as he was looking around at the burning village.

"Oh Iolaus, I have truly missed you," the demon said smugly, "but you should really learn to keep your tongue in check."

The hint of a dark threat was present in her voice.

"So is there anything else we should know about her?" Ares asked.

"There is actually a lot," Hope stated. "I think father might have told you once the story of how he placed the snake of temptation into the Garden of Paradise, Hercules. Well, she **was** this snake. She is an Archdemon, one of his most infamous agents."

"Hope, yes I've heard that you have turned against your father," she replied.

The smile on her face had actually deepened. "A very unwise decision of you if you ask me."

"I'm not asking," she bluntly answered.

"I think you should better leave now," Hercules said to the demon. "You won´t win anything here anymore."

"I must admit Hercules, I think you are right," she responded. "But I won´t leave empty handed. Meneus," she turned around to the warlord, "it seems you will not be able to fulfill your part of the bargain now. Not that it makes a difference. To be honest, I have never expected you to. Your soul however, is mine."

She made a small gesture with her hand and the man began to scream as his body burst into flames. A few moments later, he vanished from existence. But he was not the only one. His three highest officers ended in the same way split seconds later. They too had agreed to the pact with the demon.

"Well, even with you here, interrupting my work, it was still paying of for me. See you," she told them, before she dematerialized from the place.

"Okay, all in all it was a quite interesting day, right?" Ares said to the others. "By the way, Xena, Gabrielle, Hope, Eve, it is good to see you again. I am looking out to spend some time with you."

xxxxxxx

_In the year 2699_

The group of soldiers had just entered the space-station. They were now walking in a quick speed through the dark corridors.

Since he was practically immortal, Ares had originally intended to go in first. But because he was pretending to be a civilian, this would have looked strange. So it was Thor instead who took the lead. The North Gods were far easier to kill than the Olympians, but he and Hercules were still the toughest they had.

On their way there, they were being attacked a few times. They could see one of their opponents. It was a creature about the size of a human, it had a nearly yellow hairless skin, it had no nose and a wide, lip-less mouth. They had all seen such creatures many times before, an Econian alien. The only thing not normal were its eyes. Instead of the usual dark, charcoal black, color, they were of a ghostly white.

The Army of the Possessed was obviously not longer only limited to humans.

"It is just as we feared," Thor said, "they have taken over the station." He was not talking about the aliens, everyone here knew this.

He and the other two immortals were however the only ones who knew the exact identity of the enemy. The others had been told that their opponent was a dangerous force from outside of their world. In some sense, it was ironically a quite accurate description.

But if he was honest Ares didn´t care much about this fact. There were only two things on his mind right now. The first was to stop whatever Dahak was planning to do here and the other, far more personal, interest was this mysterious woman named Samantha Maynard. Was she Xena, somehow, a reincarnation? who knew?

They continued to fight their way through the giant metallic construct. Thor had finished of the first Econian with a strike of his hammer, Hercules had killed a second one and they and their mortal allies had also finished off a few possessed humans who had been standing in their way. But on the other hand they had also been loosing a few of their own men.

The mortal soldiers were still following them, but with every step they were growing more and more freaked out. With everything they saw of this three, it became more and more obvious to them that they were not normal humans.

They soon entered another room. It had originally been a large hall, close to the center of the station. But now, someone had placed two constructions at both sides of the room, so that only a relatively small corridor in the middle between them was left.

After a few moments they realized what this constructions where… cages. Inside, they could see something moving. At first they could not made it out clearly in the half-light. But as they came closer they could finally got to see it clearly.

The mortal soldiers were now starring in complete shock. Inside the improvised holding place was a couple of bizarre, horrible looking, creature. It had four long twisted legs with centimeter long claws. Their heads looked somehow like a mixture of feline predators and lizards, with their mouths full of long razor sharp teeth. On their backs grew pairs of large ripped wings. And their eyes seemed to glow in a reddish color in the dark.

The creatures didn't resemble anything they had ever seen up to then.

"My God...what...what is that?" one of the soldiers asked in horror.

"It looks like a genetic mix of various predators from all known worlds," Ares answered.

"Really."

"Yes and to that also comes the material from a number of hell-demons," he continued.

"What?" the soldier asked.

"Believe me, I know about these things," Ares told him.

"What by Odin have they been doing?" Thor whispered quietly.

"Genetic experiments. They must have been controlling this station for months," Hercules stated.

"Yes, come on now," Ares demanded.

They continued on their way.

Hercules however had a pensive expression on his face. The contact to the station had only broken off a week ago. How could Dahak´s followers be in control for months? The only possible explanation would be that the crew itself had been compromised.

"Alex..." he said, using Ares alias.

"What?" he asked.

But that very moment, they arrived at the central complex of the station and they were just entered the control center.

"Welcome," the voice of a woman greeted them as they stepped inside.

The sight that greeted them was just what Hercules had already been expecting. Standing up from a chair and walking towards them, was nobody else than Doktor Samantha Maynard. Aside from her modern clothes, she was looking like an exact mirror-image of Xena. Behind her a number of possessed, this ones probably members of the old crew, came out.

"The master has been expecting you," she told them.

"Doctor Maynard," the half-god greeted the Xena look-alike.

"Oh yes, you have of course been informed about the crew before you came here. **He** has of course also told me about you Hercules and of you Ares," she addressed them. "Of course that I had by now opened my eyes and joined the Dark God is something you could not have known."

"No...no, you are not her," Ares said quietly.

"Her? You mean Xena?" she asked. "No, I am not, even if I admit that I am probably of her blood. But I am not the only one. I want to introduce someone to you. Come out," she spoke to somebody.

Behind her and the possessed crewmembers, another figure came out in the open. It was a young girl.

To their shock they saw the striking resemblance to both, Doctor Maynard and the long dead Warrior Princess. The hair, the face, the eyes. This girl was a young Xena, an exact copy.

"This is my daughter," Doctor Maynard introduced her. "I think you can guess who is the father."

* * *

**Side-note:** The demon called `Sin´ had appeared in the first episode of season 6 of Hercules, "Be Deviled". She/It was portrait as a hell-ruler who was trying to corrupt Hercules and size his soul. She is sometimes thought to be Mephistopheles in disguise. But this is not really possible since it is stated that he is unable to leave Hell.

Yeh is a female demon from persian mythology. She is described as either, Ahriman´s companion or his daughter or both. According to the mythology Ahriman (who Dahak is to a great part based on) had send her to Earth to corrupt the early humans.


	5. Chapter 5: Dark Borders

**Chapter 5**

_The year 2699_

Hercules and Ares and even Thor were starring at the girl before them. It was a being just like Hope.

But she was looking like Xena….a fifteen years younger Xena. It was like seeing a teenage version of their old friend. But still, there was something different about her.

Unlike Maynard herself, who was wearing a pale coat, the usual outfit for a scientist, her daughter was clothed completely in black.

Ares was in complete shock.

"You...you are," he turned to the younger Xena look-alike. He could not believe it. Memories of both, Xena and Hope were flashing through his mind.

"My name is Adrianna, youngest daughter of the force that you know as Dahak" she said, "but you can just call me Antichrist, Chaos-Bringer or simply Your Majesty." she added, smiling at them all. Despite of the fact that line had come from what was seemingly a rather young girl, there was something about it that could send a shiver down anyone's spine.

"She is really charming isn´t she? " Doctor Maynard remarked.

"Yes, **really** charming," Hercules commented dryly.

Meanwhile however, the four remaining mortal soldiers of their group, two men and two women, were starring at **them**. They realized that Doctor Maynard had just used their real names. As for Hercules, and Ares, they could barely believe their ears. Those were mythological beings. It was impossible.

But on the other side, after all they had seen in the last time they were willing to believe nearly everything. They had been working with these three for weeks now and knew that there was something strange about them. But they would have never expected something like that.

At least they knew one thing for sure, they were on their side, while Samantha Maynard and whoever she was working for were quite obviously not. Yet, for a short while they were not quite sure who they should point their weapons at.

They were the remains of a group formed originally out of seven ground soldiers of the terran space-navy who had been sent to accompany their three immortal allies. Three of them however had already fallen during the fight against the Possessed on the way towards the station. Carl Schwartz, Michelle Perez, Susan Wright and Anthony Stantz, -who had the rank of sergeant and was the leader of their group- were this surviving members.

During the last weeks, while they were preparing for this mission, they had all come to know their three immortal `guests´ quite well. They had found out for a long time that they had unusual abilities. All three of them were stronger and faster than any normal human. They were able to do things that no regular man would be able to, like killing an Econa with an oversized hammer for example. They had also noticed that they were a little eccentric, well, maybe more than a little. But besides that, they seemed to be allright.

Doctor Maynard and these zombies she was hanging out with on the other side...

"Enough woman," Thor spoke up, "we are here for a reason and if you are Dahak's ally then you are our enemy. We will stop you here and now."

"Ah Thor, always headstrong and with the head through the wall. Yes, I have heard about you," Doctor Maynard responded. "Where you come from you might be seen as a god, but here…. you are nothing."

Thor, of course, he just had to be something like that, the four mortal soldiers thought.

"So… are you really...?" Michelle asked, gazing confused in Hercules direction, without really bothering or maybe not daring to finish the sentence.

"Well, what could I say? Yes," the half-god answered.

"You are **Hercules**…." she repeated, still quite unsure.

"I am," he replied.

"Ares, Thor?"

It was Carl the one who had asked this.

"Yes."

"That is absurd."

"Absurd? Did you pay any attention to anything that has been going on since we have arrived here?" Susan wanted to know.

"Absurd or not, we have a mission here," Sergeant Stantz reminded them, "….and as it looks, things are worse than we first thought. So tell me **`Hercules**´, who exactly are we fighting, again?"

"Dahak, God of Darkness," he told them. "The equivalent in your culture would be Satan."

"You are kidding," one of the soldiers called out.

"Sadly, no."

In a few meters distance, Thor was still facing up with Doctor Maynard and her demonic daughter.

"I have heard about you," she said to him, "the master has already made a move against your kind a long time ago. But unfortunately, it seems you have survived his wrath."

"Dahak´s schemes and my brother Loki´s treachery had once nearly destroyed us," he admitted. "Now that he is back, I will do everything in my power to stop him."

"I see, the master mustn't have tried very hard, since your people still exist," Maynard commented.

Thor barely restrained his anger. But he was holding himself in line. He was well aware that if Dahak was backing up Maynard´s actions, then a single rash act could get him killed.

"This is enough," Ares was now addressing her. "What exactly are you doing here?"

"And why exactly should I tell you?" she wanted to know. "Oh yes, my master also told me about you, Ares, your ego included. It was in fact quite amusing. I don´t have to tell you anything."

It was this very moment the War God felt a tremor going through the room, through reality itself.

_"It is time,"_ they heard a voice. It was a voice Hercules had not heard for centuries, Ares for thousands of years, Thor actually never before. Somehow it seemed to be at the same time on the physical plane and inside their minds. It halled through the room and also through their own consciousnesses.

"Dahak," Hercules said.

**xxx**

"Father," Adrianna greeted the voice, "you are here."

_"I am always here,"_ he responded. _"Hercules, Ares, Thor, you came…, just like expected. I have been waiting for you. You came…., just as it was planned."_

The three immortal exchanged some very disturbed looks. Could it be that they had walked straight into a trap?

_"You can begin now,"_ Dahak said.

"As you wish master," Samantha Maynard answered. "Ares, you wanted to know what exactly was it that we were doing? I think you still remember what this station was originally built for. Maybe you can figure it out," she hinted. "Kill them," she ordered the possessed members of the former crew.

The fight broke out instantly and heatedly. More of the Dahak's followers came out of hiding, some had drawn riffles and guns. They started exchanging fire with the small group of soldiers. While the Possessed were not nearly as powerful as Ares, Hercules or Thor, they had clearly outnumbered them….Not that it mattered much given that they were by far not the only threat.

It was less than 30 seconds later when the members of both sides had just taken cover as they were trying to take aim at each other. One of the Dahak´s followers had already been killed by the bullets of the soldiers, but they were under heavy fire themselves. But in the end it didn´t make much of a difference. The Possessed were not their only opponents.

Then they heard the growling noise that was coming closer to them. They all had a good idea what it was. Seconds later, two creatures came running into the room. These beings were smaller than the other ones they had seen in the cages and they had no wings, but they were just as bizarre. They kinda looked like oversized dogs, with longish, nearly skull-like heads, sharp teeth, over-long legs, and endless tails with two pairs of large spikes at the end.

Doctor Maynard and her daughter on the other side seemed to keep themselves completely out of the fight. In fact someone- or more precisely Dahak- had created a force field that was keeping them separated from the others.

Thor had been using his hammer, trying to tear down the super-natural barrier, until he heard the creatures arriving and turned around to face them. As he was now concentrating at the new opponents however, he was caught by the gun-fire of one of the Possessed. The Northern Gods were far more vulnerable to damage and less `immortal´ than the Olympians. But they were still gods, so the impact caused only a few minor wounds instead of killing him downright. Yet the damage still managed to slow him down.

In the meantime, Ares was using his powers to keep one of the creatures at bay. He had recovered some of his old strength during the last years, even if he was by far not back to his old form. But the torn wound at his shoulder by the claws of this creature was speaking of it´s ability to harm even him.

A few yards away, the soldier Sue Wright was hit by a volley of projectiles from two of the Possessed. She however was of course less lucky than the Northern God. In opposite to him she was only human. The shots into the chest and the stomach killed her almost instantly.

**xxx**

While the others were fighting for their lives and in some cases dying, Doctor Maynard was casually walking towards the main computer of the station, with her daughter following her in a few meters distance.

"Let us begin," she said. With a few touches on the displays, she activated the machines.

"Ares, you wanted to know about our work? I will show you, right before your life ends."

The machinery around them quickly came to life. They were sending out a stream of particles that were concentrating their forces in a place at the center of the room.

Ares and Hercules had both seen the original designs of the station. They instantly realized that whatever Maynard and her people had been doing here, it was not what they were supposed to.

The particles were concentrating more and more until they began to bend time and space itself. Ares could feel it. Both he and his brother realized what it was. It was a portal.

While Samantha was focusing her full attention on the sight before them, her daughter was still watching the ongoing battle.

xxx

Hercules saw what was going on and was now trying everything to break through the barrier. He was firing bullets at it and also trying to push through it with his bare hands. All that while Thor was covering his back. But it wasn´t enough.

He remembered how he and the Northern God had met the first time. Back then, they could barely stay in the same room for a few minutes without getting into a fight. To be honest, Thor had in the beginning been something of a loudmouth and a single-minded hothead. But he had really improved himself over the years. Today there was nobody who he would rather have backing him up.

The three remaining soldiers were also watching what was happening in astonishment. They were doing their best to assist their immortal allies and fight the possessed crew-members, but as much as they wanted to deny it, the presence of the two mutated creatures terrified them. They had seen many things in the last years during the war, but nothing like this. Those monsters were simply too much for them to handle.

One of the beasts leashed out at Thor and Hercules who were still trying to bring down the force-field. They could barely evade the strike of its tail. The soldiers saw this and they were trying to hold the creature off by firing all their guns. It was visibly wounded, but that barely slowed it down.

And now **they** had become its new target. The beast was throwing itself at them. Before they could get out of its reach, it had already cleaved Carl´s throat open. The other two saw this in horror. Both of them had for a moment the same thought in their heads, what had they gotten into?

Seconds later, as the monster was turning to attack them as well, it was hit by a bright ball of energy that Ares had thrown. It easily broke through the already damaged skin of the wounded creature and burned it from the inside out.

The two surviving humans and War God exchanged a small nod with each other.

**xxx**

"In the far past," Doctor Maynard explained, "the opening of portals between dimensions had been a measly and unreliable process of supernatural powers, enabled through mystic rituals, blood sacrifices and similar things."

The disdain in her voice was clear to hear.

"And even then they could only be opened for short periods of time before they collapsed back in themselves"

Her demonic daughter took her place right behind her. Just like her mother, she was standing and watching what was happening.

"Today however we can do it much better," Maynard continued. "With modern technology we can create a stable corridor, a gate to the Realm of Darkness."

She smiled.

"Imagine what we will be able to do. The master will once again walk this world and not only him. We will create a permanent connection to Hell itself. Demons will invade this reality. The entire galaxy will fall to the darkness and I will be the one who has the honor to oversee this operation," she announced.

"All this had been planned from a long hand, a really long one. For centuries now, our organization has been secretly furthering our goals from the background of human society, ever since it has been founded during the late twentieth century. The Knights of the Dark One, I think you remember the name, right?

Just like Hercules here, we have dealt with each other before, back then our organization was still young. Oh, our actions back then were simple enough, a few terror assaults, a few assassinations to replace politicians or industrialists with others, who were more in line of our interests. But all of that was part of a greater plan. Ares, who do you think was responsible for you release from the crypt 700 years ago?" she asked him mockingly.

"The company that found you was sponsored and controlled by us. Our master knew that ultimately, everything you do would play directly into his hand. And that was exactly how it came to be, right? You started the war and that made it possible for us to build up all this here." she gestured around her. "**You**, Ares are the perfect pawn." She laughed.

The War God felt both anger and shame burning up inside him.

"Now all our plans are coming to their conclusion and I am the one in control of their realization."

Behind her, the gate into the other dimension was opening.

"I am the last leader of the Knights. I gave birth to the new daughter of Darkness. I have been chosen and now I will lead us into a new age," she declared.

"Yes mother, you will..." her daughter who was standing a few meter next to her said. "...**if** you truly believe that."

Before anybody fully realized what had happened, she drew a dagger that she was carrying with her and threw it with her telekinetic powers. The weapon was moving through the air in split seconds and buried itself right into Maynard`s back.

"I am sorry mother, but there is only one person who will be in charge of this operation," she told her. The smile on her face mirrored her mother's own from a few moments before.

Samantha Maynard looked at her daughter in complete shock, before her body sank to the metallic floor.

"And by the way mother, you talk too much."

Ares was watching what happened in a confused mix of disgust, satisfaction and horror.

Behind them, a new form was beginning to take shape inside the room. They recognized it, Lucifer, the former Archangel who willingly became the vessel for Dahak.

So far, he had not taken physical form now, not completely. But in all appearances, he was about to.

For the moment however, he was a in corporal manifestation, a phantom. But even that was more than dangerous enough.

They all knew that it was now nearly too late. The gate was open.

"Hercules," Lucifer called out. He made a small gesture and the half-god was thrown through the room and crashed hard against the wall. As his body fell down, the others realized that he had hit the sharp end of a broken ledge. They starred at their fallen comrade and at the blood at the wall.

xxx

Thor was still struggling with the last of the creatures as he saw what happened to his friend. His anger rose up in him. In the past, any similar event would have caused him to do something thoughtless and dangerous. Since then however, he had learned. Part of this was thanks to Hercules and he would certainly not fail him by doing something stupid now, so he channeled his anger and tried to do something useful, like trying to take out this beast.

He threw his hammer with his full strength that broke the skull of the creature. But it was still alive and now in a murderous rage. The claws of the being were ripping deep wounds into his arms and his side. Thor grabbed the beast and slowly crushed its throat, but before that it was able to hit him in the back with its tail and stab him with its spikes. Both the Northern God and the creature were sinking down.

xxx

Before them, the being named Adrianna was laughing.

"As you see Ares, everything is playing out exactly as planned. You have lost."

xxxxxxx

As Hercules awoke, he realized that he was not longer at the same place as before. Everything around him was in a bright light. He recognized it instantly, Heaven.

_"Welcome,"_ a voice said to him. He knew it, he had heard it before, it was The God of Light.

He saw a line of figures before him, all of them people he had known in life.

"Hercules," one of them greeted him.

"Iolaus," he replied.

"It is nice to see you again," another voice said.

"I must admit I am a bit surprised to see you here, Hope," he told her.

"Why, have you thought I could not do it?" she asked him smugly.

"So….that means I am dead," Hercules realized.

"Well, not exactly," Iolaus replied, "….not yet."


	6. Chapter 6: Future and Past

**Chapter 6**

_The year 2699_

Hercules woke up. Somehow he felt different. He knew that something had changed. Both his soul and his spirit, had just returned from Heaven and he knew he had brought something with him from there.

Thor, he saw his friend lying bloodied and wounded next to one of the creatures that had been genetically engineered on board of this station.

"Hercules," he said, "you...you have to stop them."

"Trust me, I will," he assured him, before the North God closed his eyes for the last time.

He had seen them, Morrigan Deianira, the children, Serena, the real Serena, Iolaus and even Hope, Hercules remembered. Women he loved, people he had known, they had all spoken to him. He then remembered what they had told him.

_"Hercules, beloved husband, __your__ time had nearly come, but not yet. There is one last thing you have to do."_

Those had been Deianira´s words.

_"You will go back,"_ Morrigan told him, _"for a short time. But you will take something with you."_

A few meters from them the two surviving soldiers were still locked in a firefight with the remaining of the Possessed, that until Sergeant Stantz was finally hit by a shot through his chest. In spite of the fact that the soldiers were wearing body-armor, the highly advanced ammunition their opponents were using could easily pierce through it.

He sank to his knees, looking downwards at the bloodied wound. Meanwhile, Sue was standing beside him, trying to give him cover, but despite their efforts, it was obvious that they were loosing the fight.

**xxx**

"My mother was right about one thing" Adrianna said to Ares, "this universe will fall- first the known space of humanity and later on the entire cosmos."

"I was born and raised by her alone for this one purpose after all, you should know. Just as my **dear** late mother should have known though that I would not simply leave leadership to her. It is **my** destiny after all, and it will not only be demons, like she thought. All forces of Hell will be raised and enter this world. Dead souls will return to life- old and dangerous enemies, that you thought long gone, will come back to this world. I think some of them will be very interested to see you again." she laughed. "Now, let us continue."

"Stop," Ares shouted desperately.

"Stop?...Why are you really just standing there yelling at me? Is that all you can do?" she asked him. "It must be really sad for a being who is claiming to be a God to be that helpless. Accept it, there is nothing you can do.

Imagine, a universe of darkness. The great change will begin right here and spread over all creation. **All life**, every species that cannot adapt to the new order will be eradicated, and you, Ares, will have played a small part in this magnificent future, completely unwillingly of course. Through your actions alone was the balance drawn so much in our favor that we could realize all this."

All this time, Ares had been starring at the ground in anger, wishing more than ever before that he had never started this goddamned war in the first place.

"Daughter," Lucifer/Dahak greeted her. "I see you have taken over from your mother," he commented.

"Indeed father, I did and I **succeeded**," she responded. "This alone should be proof enough that I am more worthy than her."

"If you say so daughter," he replied smoothly. "Now, it is time. Let us open the portal, permanently."

"Yes father, with pleasure." she grinned.

"Dahak," they heard somebody shouting. To their surprise they saw Hercules who had managed to stand up again and was walking, visibly slowly, into their direction. Despite this, he was at least half-dead. So much was clear to her.

What surprised them the most nonetheless was not his strange physical form but the fact that he was simply walking through the barrier that was separating them, as if he didn´t even meet any kind of resistance. Adrianna was stunned.

Lucifer on the other hand had a knowing smile on his face.

"I see, so the Light has decided to assist you," he said quietly. "You have always been one to look out for Hercules."

The half god lifted his arm and a bright beam of light left his hand, directly to the dimensional portal. A few meters before it reached it, the light was met by a similar energy from Lucifer. He was trying to shield the portal with his own power, but despite his attempts he quickly realized that it was too late.

The former Archangel had not completely taken physical form yet and was not able to concentrate a sufficient amount of energy quickly enough, so Hercules' attack broke through his protection. At the same time however, he send a wave of his own energy at the half-god that slammed him to the ground, where he was now lying motionless.

The portal was hit by the light and moments later collapsed into itself. Lucifer´s transparent form disappeared in the same moment with an angry growl, as he vanished from this universe and was send back to where he came from.

**xxx**

Dahak´s consciousness was once again completely outside of this reality and was watching the events unfolding.

He had lost. His and his followers' latest plan to enter and conquer the physical world had failed. Still it had been a promising idea, no one could deny it. But no matter what some of his followers might think right now, he knew how things were bound to play out in the end. He knew the plan had failed.

On the other hand however, he had managed to rid that universe of a number of his most dangerous enemies, he was able to spread chaos over this part of space and he was able to draw many millions of souls to the way of darkness. His efforts hadn't been in vain after all. It wasn´t a victory, but it hadn´t been a complete defeat either. Today he had bad luck, but there would always be another time.

Whatever happened, the war against the Light would continue, it would as long as the universe existed.

**xxx**

Adrianna, who had cautiously taken a few steps back, was looking in shock at what had just happened. She was starring at the body of the half-god, who was still not moving. Hercules was dead, but he had still managed to disrupt her and her father's plans, as for Thor and the last of their mortal allies were as good as dead. There was only one left.

"Ares," she said.

The gaze of the Olympian met her own. She saw that he was looking far more confident than before.

"You don´t think that this here will stop us, do you?" she asked him mockingly. "All I need to do is to activate the portal again. In fact it is already powering up."

She made a slight gesture and telekinetically reactivated the machines.

"Your brother merely bought this world a few minutes. The `great´ Hercules died for nothing," she told him.

He flinched, realizing that she was right. It would only be a few moments now and she would be able to start everything all over.

Ares remembered back. His `disagreements´ with Hercules. He thought about the time he had spend with Xena, Gabrielle and the others after her last return from death. He especially remembered how Hercules and Iolaus had confronted him the first time as he had started to spread war and chaos among the people of Greece once again, this time in the not so noble purpose of getting back a part of his dismishing powers. Hercules had accused him of never learning from his mistakes. How right he had been!

Here he was now, thousands of years later. He had once again followed his old habits and this time it finally led to his destruction.

"And now you are completely alone." He heard Adrianna´s taunting voice. "As if a sorry excuse for a `god´ like you would ever be able to stop us."

Ares looked up to meet her eyes. He was looking over to the two remaining soldiers. They had taken cover and were surrounded by enemies. Sue was holding the unmoving body of her wounded comrade. She herself had been shot in the shoulder and was struggling to even lift her gun. It was clear that they wouldn't make it. Ares gave her a quick nod with his head and she returned the gesture.

Then his gaze returned to the demonic girl before him.

"You," he said to her. "You know, you and your mother have something in common."

"Yes?" she asked him.

"You **both** talk too much," he said.

Without a warning he unleashed all his remaining energy and sent it downwards through the deck he was standing on, burning itself into the machinery of the station.

"No," Adrianna now screamed in horror as she realized what was happening as the vessel started to explode around her.

Ares couldn´t help but smile. They had done it after all.

**xxx**

At the outside, the burning space-station was for a few moments surrounded by a glowing sphere of energy, before it with a huge explosion vanished from this universe.

**xxx**

During the next months the war, that means the war between the Earth and the other forces slowly came to an end. The fighting still continued for some time, but peace finally prevailed, at least for the moment.

The Econa species had been brought close to extinction by both their enemies and Dahak´s actions and their survivors would still continue to be a lingering threat for some time.

**xxx**

Far away from where the fight took place, Aphrodite realized what she had feared would happen from the very beginning, since they had started to their `mission´. None of them would return. She was now really the last of her kind. The last one standing.

Their great time may have ended thousands of years ago, but now their era was truly completely over.

But she wouldn´t continue like that, she decided, alone for all eternity. So she made a simple choice. She gave up her godhood and her immortality, choosing to live out the rest of her time as a mortal among the humans on Earth.

xxx

This war and the events that happened had many consequences. Battles were fought at a scale like never before, spreading over entire worlds. A family of gods vanished and Ares, Hercules, Thor and Aphrodite were gone from this universe.

Another important fact was that the government on Earth was now aware of Dahak´s existence, as a short time later would be the entire human civilization. They knew now that there were forces out there, powers they had originally only thought to be part of legends, and that some of them were watching them. It was a revelation that would shake their world.

Many humans would choose to resist Dahak at all costs, while some lived up to these ideals, a few of them went too far and turned into zelouts and fanatics. Others, like so many times before, would decide to join him willingly.

The war between Light and Darkness continued.

**xxxxxxx**

_Ancient Greece, thousands of years earlier_

A few days had passed from he fight against the warlord and his men. It had ended very quickly with the appearance of Hercules and the two gods. Their opponents knew that they were hopelessly outmatched. To that came that the demon `Sin´ who made sure to take down their leaders. Needless to say that the rest of them had surrendered very quickly.

Right after that, Ares and Hercules had a long `talk´ with each other, which however didn´t seem to bring much on either side.

Now their group, including Hercules and Iolaus, was on their way to another village, one that the most members of their group had visited before, at least one.

"Why do we have to go to **that** place again?" Hope asked the others.

"Because she is my sister and my niece who I had only met once before," Gabrielle responded. "I understand that you don´t want to return there, but they are my, **our** family."

They were on the way to Potidaea, Gabrielle´s home-town.

"So, can you tell me a bit more about this demon Hercules?" Xena wanted to know.

"I have already told you about everything I know," he answered. "Remember, I only met this being once before too."

"And you Hope," she said. "I am sure you might know something more"

"Maybe," she replied.

"Xena, I have been thinking. Somehow I don´t think that the demon was only after the souls of these warlord and his men," Gabrielle pointed out. "Hercules said that back when he met her, she had a second agenda going on, beside the obvious. What if you were the one she was really after?"

"You sound as if that would be a bad thing," Hope remarked. "Maybe you would have been better of without her."

"Hope," Gabrielle called out.

"Yes mother, is something wrong?" she grinned.

Xena turned around.

"Listen, I am willing to give you a chance. But that doesn´t mean I have to listen to your snide-remarks or your taunts. I am willing to trust you for now, but..."

"You're willing to give me a chance? Just like that? How nice of you" she ironically remarked " Just remember that I have never asked you to. Besides, has it ever crossed your mind that between you, Eve-Livia here and even mother, I have easily killed the least people. It were six. One of them was an accident, two were to restore my body after **you** had destroyed it and one was Caine of all people."

"And one was my son," Xena replied angrily.

"Yes," she admitted. Her voice had dropped somewhat now. She sounded less determined and a bit softer. "How many had it been for you again?" she asked. "100.000, 200.000, somewhat in between? **If** at all I should be giving **you** a chance."

"This is really enough," Hercules told them. "I truly thought you two finally managed to leave the past behind you. I guess I was wrong."

"Hercules is right," Eve said. "You have to get past this."

Hope keep looking at her as if she had another retort. But before she could say anything...

"Please, stop this," Gabrielle asked her.

"I am sorry mother," she said. "I don´t know what has been going on with me the last few days "

"I **know**," Gabrielle replied. "We are getting closer to the place where the Destroyer died."

**xxxxxxx**

At the same evening, far above all of them, a glowing ball of fire appeared up in the sky. For a short moment it shined brighter than the stars. Then the object started to fall down to Earth.

**xxx**

He couldn't tell what had happened. Fire was all around him. He didn´t know where he was, but he was still alive.


	7. Chapter 7: Survivors

**Chapter 7**

The burning object in the sky had been seen by many people on the ground. Only a few however saw the place where it had come down to Earth.

Most of them were scared by it. They thought of it as a bad omen, a sign of coming doom. Some were praying to their gods to protect them. Of course, what few of them knew was that most of their gods were already dead.

But in some of them, another feeling awoke: curiosity.

xxx

Among the ones who had seen it and were tempted to investigate it, were also Xena, Hercules and the others.

"Xena, what is that?" Gabrielle asked, her eyes attentively investigating the night sky.

"I don´t know," she answered. "We will find out, eventually. But not right now, we'd better wait till the morning. And by the way, we were on the way to visit your family after all, so I maybe we should spare this for the next day."

xxxxxx

They were starring at her. Both of them, Lila and Sarah were looking at Gabrielle´s double, who she had claimed to be her daughter. Just a short time before they had already enthusiastically greeted Hercules and Iolaus- an unprecedented chance to meet two legendary heroes like them. Hope´s presence on the other hand was something of a shock.

For Lila it was not the first time that they met. It had however been under less than favorable circumstances. In all honesty, Gabrielle´s daughter scared her, but also fascinated her.

"Yes, we have met before," she said.

"We did," Hope confirmed. "In fact, I lived here for a few months. Of course everybody thought I was mother, back then."

"Yes we believed that and then you threatened us and tried to kill us," Lila replied.

"Kill you? No, not really, you are my family after all."

"You tried to throw me off a bridge," she responded angrily.

"If I wanted to throw you off a bridge, Aunt Lila, I would have just done it," Hope said casually. "I left you instead in a position for Xena to reach you. I never had any real intention to hurt you, I just wanted an distraction for Xena."

Gabrielle´s sister felt her jaw drop at the callous words of her `niece´, as she talked about how she had once, seemingly without a second thought, endangered her life.

"I am sorry Lila," Gabrielle told her. "Hope had never been much under normal people."

"That much is clear," she replied.

At this point Eve got involved into the conversation.

"Hope has really changed," she said. "Okay, she is acting somewhat strange sometimes, but she has really proven herself."

This statement only earned her a sharp look from the half-god. As she herself saw it, Hope had not actually changed much characterwise. She had merely changed her loyalties. But when she remembered everything that had happened in the last months, maybe she had changed to some degree, she admitted to herself.

"Like you did," Sarah replied, "or me," she added a bit quieter. "Like Eve once said, you are in good company here."

Lila´s daughter so far didn't get involved their conversation at all, till now.

Hope had already heard about her cousin. Years ago she had been kidnapped by the warlord and slave-master Gurkhan, who had also killed Gabrielle´s parents as they a short time later tried to get Sarah back. He had made her a part of his harem as one of his wives. That was in this case only a glorifying name for a slave-concubine.

When she was part of the harem, Sarah had developed a simple strategy to survive, to become more nasty and more ruthless than any of her competition. In that way, she became Gurkhan´s head-wife. In that role she mistreated the other `wives´, she ordered torture on many of them who had crossed her and without a doubt she got rid of some of them, if they turned out to be dangerous rivals.

This continued until Xena and Gabrielle finally freed her three years ago. Sarah was a murderer. Of course she could not be compared to any of the others here, by far not. But she herself seemed to think that she was. Hope could feel the guilt eating at her mind. Sarah didn´t let it show, but it was there, deep down.

"If you excuse me mother," she said, turning to Lila, "I still have a few things to do."

"Of course," her mother replied while the young woman left quickly the room.

Gabrielle kept looking pensively at her as she left a bit hurriedly the room. It was obvious that she was feeling uneasy around Hope and around Eve. Maybe they reminded her too much of her own past.

"My `dear cousin´ and Eve have something in common," she commented quietly to Gabrielle, "they both hate themselves."

"And what about you Hope?" she replied.

The half-god didn´t answer.

"Mother, what I said about Xena..."

"Yes?"

"Don´t expect me to stop."

"You know it hurts me when you speak about her like that," Gabrielle told her.

"I know, that is the reason I do it," she replied.

"You will never stop being angry at me, will you?" Gabrielle sighed.

"No and I will never stop reminding it to you." she smiled. "You see, I will always be there for you."

xxxxxxx

_Several miles away_

He was trying to move, as quickly as possible. Where was he? he asked himself.

He was back on planet Earth, that much was clear, but where exactly, he wasn´t sure. The landscape seemed somewhat familiar to him, but he couldn´t quite place his finger on it.

The last thing he remembered was how he had shot his energy at the machines of the space-station.

He remembered fire….The station had been destroyed, he was sure of that.

Afterwards, he wasn´t quite sure what happened. And now he was here. The station must have crashed over this place, he realized, wherever that was. But they had been dozens of light-years away from any habitable world.

That meant they had to have jumped through hyperspace, in a vessel that was breaking apart. It was no wonder that he felt so miserable. Every mortal being in his place would have been killed.

Ares could tell that he was disoriented. He was moving, as quickly as possible. He didn´t have the strength left to teleport. So he was walking. His body was hurting with every step. The damage he had taken was too much, even for a god. It was far more than just physical harm. But he knew he had to move on, as quickly as possible.

He could feel them, several presences that he knew. But it was impossible. Some of them had not been around for thousands of years.

Hercules? …It was impossible, he had seen him die. Had his brother somehow survived the explosion of the station? He also felt the presence of two certain individuals with connection to higher powers, Eve and Hope. But that was even more unlikely.

Unless...unless he was not longer in the same world. Was he dead, was this some sort of afterlife? He doubted that.

Or he was no longer in his own time and space. Was that possible?

Was Xena also there? he asked himself. He reached out with super-natural senses. Yes, he could make out someone else, touched by darkness, aggressive, but somehow restrained. It could be her. Ares remembered, her essence had been just like that, at least after Dahak brought her back from the dead.

He had to reach them, as quickly as he could. The crash...he feared that he was not the only one who had survived.

xxxxxxx

_Potidaea_

"So this is the place?" Hope asked.

They were standing at a place a short distance outside of the town, close to the woods.

"Yes, it is right here," Gabrielle answered, gesturing to a point on the ground.

This was the place where they had buried the Destroyer many years ago…. The small mound of earth above the unmarked grave had long vanished.

Hope knelt down in front of it.

"You know he only killed out of hunger…He needed to feed" she said to Gabrielle. "He didn´t really care what he ate or who. He only did it to survive or to protect me. Never out of hatred or bloodlust. He was never truly evil. I guess this is the main reason why father was ultimately dissatisfied with him.

Deep down I have always known that he was outside his reach."

Gabrielle listened silently to her words. She admitted that it was strange, seeing Hope as a mourning mother over...a monster.

"It took me a long time to make the decision to change sides," she continued. "It went against everything I had been raised for. Well, except the few shreds I was able to learn from you. But as I finally did, I had an entire number of reasons. The most important was of course that father was obviously willing to destroy entire worlds. But this was a small part of it too.

I knew that my offspring wasn´t with us after he died. So, now I take my chance to reunite with him," she said. "I know for you he was just a monster, but he was my son."

Gabrielle stepped closer and laid her arms around Hope´s shoulders.

xxxxxx

The sun had set for a long time. Xena nonetheless had trouble sleeping. She had a terrible feeling that something was wrong. It was the overwhelming sense that something dark and dangerous was out there.

…And maybe it was. When they had first seen the mysterious object falling from the sky, she had first wanted to wait for the coming day. But now she couldn't get rid of her nervousness.

She suddenly realized that she was not alone.

"Eve," she said.

"Is everything okay mother?" she asked.

"Yes, of course," Xena replied.

"You can feel it as well, can you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Something is out there, a darkness, something evil," Eve told her. "I know you have been unsettled the entire afternoon. You are right, there is reason to worry. Like you said mother, we will go tomorrow and see what we can find out."

"Okay," Xena just replied.

Eve took a seat next to her.

"You know mother, you don´t have to lie to me," she said.

"What?"

"You are not completely sure about something, afraid or simply nervous, but you deny it to everyone else. If someone asks you, you just lie about it. I know this, I felt this often enough myself when I was still Livia.

Of course that was mostly in the first years for me. Later, as I built up my reputation, no one would have dared to ask me if something was wrong any more. But that didn´t change the fact that I was always pretending that everything was alright, that I couldn´t fail.

I have seen you also acting this way mother, nearly the entire time actually- never admitting a weakness. You know, you don´t have to be like this. This isn´t an army camp and you are not a warlord anymore. We are your family and your friends, we all trust you here."

"You mean with the exception of Hope," Xena responded.

"Yes, of course," Eve replied, laughing. "But still, think about this."

"I will," Xena said, "thank you. We will then deal with whatever is out there tomorrow."

"Yes, goodnight mother."

With that, the Warrior Princess finally went to sleep.. She had no idea that the coming night would be something she would never forget.

xxxxxxx

Xena was hearing a voice. It was calling to her. She couldn´t help but think that she somehow knew it.

_"Xena,"_ she heard it saying her name.

Then suddenly she realized something. The voice, it was her own.

xxx

_At the outside._

Ares was struggling to push himself forward. As he finally sank to his knees, he realized his location.

He had just reached the outskirts of Potidaea, Gabrielle´s home-town. There was no doubt anymore, he was in the past.


	8. Chapter 8: Twisted Mirror

This chapter has some adult content, not that explicit however.

* * *

**Chapter 8**

She didn´t know where she was. All around her there was nothing but a dense, grey fog. It was endless, pure nothingness.

Then she heard the voice calling out to her.

_"Xena. Who are you Xena? Who are you really? What do you want? Tell me. Show me. I want to know."_

She found herself surrounded by a frightening void. There was nothing there beside herself and the voice, the voice and the things it was saying to her.

xxx

_All of the sudden__ she realized that she was in the normal world again. As she looked around, she didn´t recognize the place where she was standing._

_Her mind was still confused, she realized. She could tell she was more than a bit disoriented. Where was she, she asked herself?_

_All around her she could hear noises, sounds, moans and faint cries._

_Her __senses on the other hand __had become clearer.__ She knew where she was and what was going on. She could see and feel everything now._

_It was an open field, bordering to a wooded area. She recognized it now. The place was close to one of the last villages they had visited, and right in front of her, __there was__ Gabrielle. They were standing skin on skin, __wearing nothing at all, their breasts were being__ pressed together._

_**Everyone **__in the room__** was **__completely unclothed. Right behind them were standing __A__res and Hercules. Their hands were slowly gliding all over their bodies._

_She could feel Ares moving inside of her. __It felt incredibly good__, __and judging by the expression__ on Gabrielle´s face, she was thinking in similar lines._

_At some point, the two __men switched__ places and Ares was now taking Gabrielle and Hercules was behind her._

_Just a few __meters away from them,__ Iolaus was lying between the equally naked Hope and Eve._

___Then suddenly, Gabrielle was crying out loudly in Ares arms._

…_As she sank down, he released her from his arms and he walked over to join the others._

_It looked like he wanted to have the daughters right after the mothers. Typical__ for him, she thought, but on __the other hand it __didn´t appear as if__ he were the only one, she admitted._

_After a few more minutes, Hercules was __also heading__ over to them and Iolaus took his place behind her._

_The __demi God, she now saw,__ was now kneeling down in front of Hope. He was spreading her legs and pushed inside her. The two half-gods were getting along amazingly well with each other, her own thoughts from a few days __before echoed inside her head.__ She grinned._

_Next to them she __could see that Ares was now__ moving on top of Eve. It was somewhat strange, seeing her daughter like this__, but on the other hand __of course_ she was well aware that ___this two have been doing things like this for years, back when Eve was still Livia._

_A few moments later she felt Iolaus' thrusting become more rigid and vigorous. __He was obviously having his share __of fun with her. Good, she thought, he deserved it._

_She remembered how__she had done it with Iolaus the first time. It was many years ago. She had manipulated and used him, got involved with him, slept with him, all as __part of her plan to get to Hercules__. Her __original intent__ had been __to turn the two friends against __each other, to make them fight, to__ kill each other. So that she could __easily __finish of the survivor that way__. Iolaus __was of course__ meant to be the sacrificial pawn in this._

_With those thoughts in mind,__ she felt him finishing inside her, __then he suddenly__ grabbed her and turned her roughly around. She was shocked by the pure hatred she saw__ on__ his face._

_"Yes, remember you cursed slut! " he yelled. "Remember what you did to me. You deserve to die. You know this! You..." _

_His avalanche of words was__ cut-off__ though__ in the middle of his sentence. She saw__ blood__ flowing out of his mouth._

_Just as shocked as she was,__ Xena looked downwards and saw that she herself was holding the sword that had buried itself into Iolaus' body. Within a few moments, his eyes became blank and his lifeless body fell to the ground in front of her._

_"No!," Hercules__ shouted__ as he __noticed__ what happened. "Noo!." _

_He __angrily headed towards her._

_"What have you done?" he yelled, __utter rage visible on his face__. "What have you done?!" _

_It was clear that he was ready to attack her._

_But then, suddenly, he stopped in his movement. __Gabrielle was standing right behind him. __Xena could see now that her friend had stabbed one of her sais in his back.__  
_

_The half-god sank to his knees, dying._

_The Bard's__ face looked up towards her and she gave her a wicked grin._

xxxxxxx

_From one moment to the other, she was somewhere else. _

_This was a random village somewhere, __a place where the__ houses were burning. Around her, people were fleeing in panic. It was a scenario that she knew only all too well. Yes, she had seen scenes like __these__ countless times in her life. In many of __these __cases she was the one responsible for them, just like this one, she realized._

_She cast a long look around her__. She was standing in the middle of a massacre. The attackers were shouting her name while they raided and killed. __These __were her troops, she realized, she was their leader, their warlord. __It was a very familiar image,__ just like so many times before._

_But one thing was different, __nonetheless.__ There were three persons here, she had never expected or wanted to see during __a scene like this._

_Just a few steps away from her__, Gabrielle was __hectically__ fighting a few of the villagers, who had armed themselves and were trying to protect their homes. She saw her kill one of them with her blades without a moment of hesitation __and much to her horror__, she seemed to be laughing while doing it, __too__._

_In some distance, Hope was lifting a couple of men with her __telekinetic powers, callously __using them to break the neck of one of the villagers._

_On the opposite side of the battlefield,__ Xena saw Eve, who was slowly cutting the throat of a young woman. The blood __splattered__ all over her face and her body, but she didn´t seem to care._

_It was a nightmare come to life. In some ways, it was one of the worst things she had ever seen. But on the other hand, deep down, a small part of __her had to somehow admit, that she found the entire scene __an attractive spectacle and somehow disturbingly..._

xxx

"...Comforting," someone continued her line of thought. It was the same voice she had been hearing the entire time.

As she turned around, her gaze remained glued for a few seconds to a very young dark haired woman standing beside her, barely more than a teenager. But this woman, aside from the age, she realized, was looking exactly like herself.

"They are your family after all," the double said to her, "don´t you want them to act exactly like you?"

"No," Xena called out.

"Is this not the future that you want?" she asked her with a cruel smile.

"Who are you?" Xena shouted.

xxx

Xena woke up with a scream.

This was the worst dream she had had in a very long time. It was of course not the first time she was plagued by nightmares. But this...this was different somehow. It was, felt, nearly like the things she had truly lived through, but somehow terribly wrong.

And this girl….It was as if she had been looking into a twisted mirror.

If it was even a dream at all and not **something else**.

But there **was** something else, she now came to realize. Something was there or rather someone. It was another feeling that she would recognize everywhere. For years now she could always tell when he was close by.

"Ares," she said.

xxx

A minutes later, they were all outside, at the border of the town. Xena had told them that Ares was out here. Knowing her and her relationship with the war-god, none of them doubted her words. The question was, what did he want?

She had also told them that he was out there, refusing to come closer and moving very slowly. It was strange.

They found him quite quickly, after searching the area where Xena had sensed his presence. But what they found was not what they had expected, by far not.

A ripped and obviously wounded figure was lying unconscious at the ground at the edge of the forest close to the town. Only at a closer inspection did they realize that the man was in fact Ares. But still, they were barely able to recognize him. It was not only his terrible state. He was somehow….. different.

How? Why? That was the question. How did he come here and what had happened to him?

For the moment however, they brought him inside. He could answer their questions when he woke up.

xxxxxxx

_The next__ morning, close to the area of Potidaea_

A group of armed men was walking through the wooded area close to the town called Potidaea. They had spent a few hours now, searching.

The day before, they had seen the bright glowing object on the sky and they had made the decision to go looking for it. They wanted to see it, to know what it was.

Beside that, in the back of their mind, they all hoped that it might be somehow valuable, even a gift from the gods, maybe. One could never tell.

One thing however was clear. If they were the first to find it, everybody in the region would be talking about them. They were only a group of simple men from one of the neighboring villages. This was their chance to do something extraordinary for once in their lives.

One of their group was the first to stumble over the scorched area. The five men continued their way. Over a place of at least a mile it looked as if the forest had been completely burned to the ground. And in the center of this burned piece of land they could finally see it.

The thing before them was something like they had never seen before in their lives. It was large, very large and seemed to be completely made out of metal. What they saw was just unbelievable for them. The largest thing that they had ever seen made out of steel was a harnish to protect a man, but this...

It had easily the size of a dozen or more houses put together. But by the looks of it, it might not even been complete. At it sides were places were the metal looked ripped and dented or broken. They could see a large open hole that looked as if an entire part of it had been broken off.

All over its surface they could make out scorch-marks and areas where the metal actually looked as if it had been molten.

They didn´t know what to make out of what they were seeing, they could only stand there and stare. This thing, whatever it was, had to be made by gods. There was no other explanation.

A part of them wanted to run away, to get as far as possible, but another part was still curious. In the end they even decided to get a few steps closer.

Unknown to them, this should turn out to be the worst decision of their lives. Because they were not alone.

At first they didn´t even notice the presence next to them. It was only a substance that was moving through the air, dust flowing in the wind, ashes.

Then however, as this ash slowly started to reform itself and began to take physical shape, right in front of them, their fears were began to win out. But it was too late.

The fog started shaping something, something whose form vaguely resembled a human being, but it only consisted of the dust that had been floating harmlessly in the air a few seconds before. At the place where the face should have been, they could make out two bright glowing eyes.

Now three of the men had finally started to draw back, one of them was already running for his life and the others were moments away from doing the same thing. Two however were like frozen.

The being reached out to them. It touched one of the men and, while for a short moment they heard a horrible scream, it looked like his skin and flesh was dissolving and drawn from his body. After a couple of seconds more, there was nothing left but a pile of bones falling to the ground.

The `thing´ however had now the form of a human, although it looked as if had been horribly burned over the entire surface of its body.

"Hello," it said to them.

Somewhere in the back of their minds they realized that it was the voice of a female, but at the same time they could hear something behind them, coming from the woods.

Just as the demon before them was moving to the next man, they saw two, monsters- there was no other way to describe them- coming out of the woodlot, moving on four legs. Their comrade, who had just run away earlier, now stopped dead in his tracks as he saw the two beasts growling before him. But he was already too close. The creatures threw themselves at him.

And now they saw a third of the same kind coming out of the forest. There was no way they could escape, they realized in horror.

They heard the screams of their helpless friend, while the monsters were ripping him apart.

"You have come to the right time," the she-demon behind them said. "I needed material to regenerate myself and of course some flesh for my pets," she told them with dark amusement.

She had already grabbed the next man and began to consume him like the other one.

The two remaining men could only watch as the creatures were coming closer. They had their weapons drawn, but they knew they would not help them much against these beings before them. As the monsters finally attacked, both men were killed within moments.

Behind them, the demon was laughing.

xxxxxxx

_Potidaea_

They had been watching over their new guest for a few hours now, especially Xena.

She really wanted to know what had happened to Ares. As thousand questions were continuously whirling inside her mind, as he finally started to wake up. Their entire group had assembled around him to see what is going on.

After a few more minutes the War God opened his eyes. He seemed weak and disoriented. For a few seconds he didn't seem to know where he was.

"Hercules," he recognized them after a few seconds. "Xena, is that really you?"

"Of course," she answered. "Who do you expect?"

"You would be surprised," he said. "You...you don´t know...don´t know what happened."

"I can imagine," Gabrielle remarked. "How did you come here, in this shape?" she asked.

"Gabrielle, it is quite simple. I am Ares, but not exactly the Ares you know right now."

That is what he calls simple, the Bard said to herself with some sarcasm.

"Hercules, Iolaus, Hope," he addressed them, "you have seen something like this before. Tell me, **when** exactly are we?"

The question more than surprised them. But at least most of them understood.

"Don´t tell me," Xena said.

"Yes, I think I have travelled through time."


	9. Chapter 9: Sisters

**Chapter 9**

Many miles away from their group, the being who was sometimes simply called `Sin´ was thinking about all the things that had happened.

It looked like one of the children of Dahak had decided to turn against him, once again, and now it was part of **her** duty to do something about it.

It was time to get on her way.

xxxxxxx

_Potidaea_

Their new guest had regained consciousness a short while before. He was Ares, but as he himself had said it, not exactly the one that they knew.

By this point he had begun to tell them his story. He told them about his survival for thousands of years, about the war in the future, about Dahak´s return.

Hope had returned a few minutes earlier. She then started to use her own powers to heal some of the damage that had been done to him and restore his strength, but even she had her limits in that regard. All that while, he was still talking.

There were of course a few things he decided to keep for himself, as the fact that Xena had left him paralyzed and burried in a tomb for nearly 2000 years or the little detail that he was the one who had started the war in the first place.

All that would make things only unnecessary complicated right now, he said to himself. He had already enough to explain anyway. Right now he was telling them about the new Child of Darkness that he had encountered in the future.

"And you are sure she is...that she is exactly like me?" Xena asked him, a bit, well…. **unsure**, while she heard about his last enemy.

Ares noticed that. It was obvious that something was bothering her, something else that had nothing to do with his story. Even after all those years, he knew her well enough.

"She is your exact mirror-image," he answered, "only a few years younger."

"**Younger** you say," Xena responded. There was something in her voice though…..He couldn´t quite place it. What was clear however was that something was going through her mind.

"Yes," he told her, "and I am afraid she was right next to me when the `station´ crashed. You know how Hope is, all able to survive. She is a being of the same kind. If I had made it here, there is a good chance that she had as well."

"Yes, there is," she replied quietly.

xxxxxxx

_Somewhere else_

The being named Adrianna was at this moment standing in the center of a pillar of flames. As she stepped out of the fire, her body had completely regenerated itself. Her skin was not longer the charred mass from before and her hair had started to grow again.

It was an interesting experience, she had to admit. She knew of course that she had the ability to complete self-regeneration. It was one of the many things she had learned while growing up, but she had never actually done it.

She had been conjuring the part of the power of darkness that she still had access to, now that she was no longer fulfilling her mission. This fire here was only a physical manifestation of that force.

The flesh and blood of this group of fools, that had been skulking around at the site of the crashed space-station, had been more than enough to completely restore her.

She now looked as if she was about 18 years old. In truth of course, she was less than eight months, months during which she had been trained and indoctrinated by her mother. As it had been told to her countless times, the only reason she had been born was her purpose for their great mission. This was the only reason she even existed. There was nothing else, at least as far as it came to her mother.

It had truly been the best day of her life when she had finally killed the woman. She should have seen it coming, really. It was her after all who always told her about the importance of their cause and her own role in it.

With the death of her mother she had began taking over herself. She was after all destined to lead the conquest of the galaxy, all the while standing at the side of her father….or that's what she used to think. Ares, Hercules and their companions had robbed it all from her.

The hatred she felt in this moment for the War-God was nearly boundless. He, the damned Olympian and the others had ruined everything for her.

And now she was here. Judging by the information her scouts had brought her about their surroundings and by the glimpses she had seen of the thoughts of these villagers, she was no longer in her own time. And this was not everything, she also felt the presence of others, others who she had heard of but never met, because they were long gone, Xena and Hope. There was no doubt, she was thousands of years in the past.

She already had a short mental contact with the so called Warrior Princess and it was...interesting.

The only question was, what was she to do now? She had just lost everything she had ever had. Silently, the Daughter of Darkness swore to herself that she would have her revenge on Ares.

On the other hand, luckily, she still had a few of her servants left, some of the creatures that they had raised for her and they were able to breed more, much more, an entire army at her call. That was **their** purpose.

If she thought about it, there was another chance.

This age was a primitive one, the people who lived here were weak. If she took some time to breed her new army, she would be able to take over this world for herself. Instead of just taking over known space in the name of her father, she could reshape the future itself by her design. Yes, she might still change her defeat into a glorious victory.

The only problem was that this didn´t match with the plans of her father. But on the other side their campaign in the future and especially her role in it had already failed. So her old destiny was far out of her reach right now anyway…..Why not take advantage of the new situation?

Still, regardless of how things were about to unfold, what she needed was just a bit more time. Maybe it was the moment to set up a few distractions. With that thought in mind, she sent out another mental call.

xxxxxxx

_Later __that__ day_

They were now standing where the group of villagers had been the morning of that day. Ares, who was still quite weak, led them to the place where the space-station had crashed after its transfer through time and space.

"And you say this was a place where people used to live? ….. Up there between the stars?" Gabrielle asked. She didn´t really manage to put it in better words right now.

"What is left of it," he simply replied.

They also found the remains of at least four or five men. Their mutilated leftovers were scattered all over the area.

"How in the world did this happen?" Eve questioned, looking at the mangled wreck of the vessel.

"My personal guess?" Ares asked. "Remember I've told you that the devices on board were able to open gates to other dimensions? My best theory is that they somehow interacted with my own powers. As you know, gods have the ability to travel through time to some degree.

Just moments before I was sent here, the machine was opening a gate. I tried to use my powers to stop it. I think that both forces collided somehow and the force generated opened a rift in the space-time that sent us here," he explained, remembering how he had thought back about the past- about **this** precise time period- just before the transfer.

Ares just realized that Hercules, Iolaus, Xena, Gabrielle and Eve were all looking at him with open mouths now.

"You are definitely not the same Ares that we know," Hercules commented.

"Just because I am able to say something intelligent that doesn´t involve having two armies at each other's throats doesn't mean that I'm not the same any more…." he protested as if he had been offended by his comment.

"It kinds does" Xena muttered.

"Well maybe a thousand years were enough for me to change somewhat…Even Gods can change, by the way…" he insisted.

"Of course they can," Xena remarked. "But, to be honest, in your case we had lost all hope."

"Very funny," the god retorted. "Don´t you think that we might have more important worries right now? It is obvious that my fears were correct, **she** is here and as it looks like she is not the only one. Some of the other creatures might have also survived."

He gestured towards the torn apart remains of what was once a human body.

"I have to admit, Ares is right," Hercules said.

"Yes, we have to find them," Xena pointed out.

xxxxxxx

_Potidaea_

It was the night of the same day. By now, they had returned to town and they started to organize search parties. The people of Potidea were of course shocked and horrified as they heard all about the men who had been killed, the creatures that were now roaming the land surrounding their town.

Many of the citizens volunteered to help in the search when they heard about the danger and the death of the men from the neighboring village. It was clear to Xena, Hercules and the others however that they didn't have the slightest idea what they were getting themselves into. Still, they needed their help to track down their enemies. The area was simply too large to do it all by themselves. But that didn´t mean that they had to like it.

They would start the next morning to systematically look over the local area. For now however it was too late. Trying to find these creatures during the night would be suicide, especially with the villagers in town.

xxx

_At the same time at the home of Gabrielle's sister. _

The half-god Hope had been living here for the last days, together with the rest of her `family´. She had been staying in one of the rooms of the house. The others were already lying in their beds, gaining strength for the following day.

She herself had only very little need for sleep. The relatively short time that was really necessary for her to rest, she could spread over the span of a few weeks. So it came that Hope was normally only sleeping when she actually wanted to.

Tonight however, it was a bit different. Her mind was feeling heavy, her thoughts were being distracted. She however knew exactly what was the reason. It was a mental call, sent out by a being very similar to herself.

It had been drawing on her subconsciousness for hours now, talking to her, asking her questions. It were questions that she had ignored so far. Now it was time to answer.

She could have also responded to the calls when she was awake. But it was easier to hold a real conversation if the distractions from the outside world were out of the way. So she decided to lay down for a while. She was curious what her **`sister´** wanted to talk about.

**xxx**

A short time later, Hope´s consciousness found herself inside what looked like a large empty room. It was of course only a projection, since she was outside of the physical realm, outside of the normal understanding of space and time. It was a place that she knew all too well.

"Welcome sister," she heard a voice greeting her. It sounded really remarkable like Xena. "So you are Hope."

Ares had truly not exaggerated, she decided. The woman before her really looked like a young version of Xena or in this case like the identical looking descendant who had given birth to her.

"It is you," Hope stated. "Ares was right, you **are** here."

"Yes I am," she responded angrily, "not that I am particular happy about it. But now that I am, I have decided to make the best out of my situation. I guess Ares has told you about me?"

"He told us a few things."

"I was born and raised to be your successor, in every single way. I was meant be Dahak´s harbinger, not only to this single world, like **you**, but to the entire galaxy."

The arrogance in her voice was hard to overhear.

"It seems that didn´t work out quit right, now did it?" Hope asked sarcastically.

"You! " the other half-god growled angrily, but she caught herself a few moments later. "Ares, Hercules and the North God Thor, they and a few miserable mortals who had been helping them managed to ruin everything."

"Yes, Ares mentioned something like that and now you are here. What exactly do you want from me?"

"I may be stuck here in the past now, but that doesn´t mean that I am completely out of options to accomplish my goals," she replied. "I still have some of my troops left, creatures that have been bred especially to serve my purpose, controlled by my mind."

"You're talking about the beings that came here along with you," Hope said. "We've already got a small impression on what they can do."

"Oh yes, that band of villagers who dared to disturb me in the forest. So I guess you and your compatriots have found the crash-site by now. It seems it was a good decision to move away from it. Don't think that I fear your little group though. Yet **together** you are still strong enough to be a hindrance."

"You should think that. A group that was weaker than ours had stopped you before."

"They got lucky," she replied, "and do I need to point out that all members of this group, with the exception of one, got killed in the process?" One who will soon follow the rest, she thought silently.

"Maybe, but this time you don´t have father standing behind your back," Hope retorted.

"No, I haven´t. But maybe I can make you another offer, sister. You don´t have to be my opponent. Think about it for a moment...", she said, "two forces of darkness like us...together, we could achieve anything we set our minds to. We can take the world...for us, here and now.

Who do you think could stop us? the pathetic rest of the Olympians, Hercules, the puny North Gods? This world can be ours, if we work together."

"This sounds really intriguing," Hope remarked. "What makes you think I am interested in something like that?"

"Despite all little things where we differ from each other, you are still like me, born and raised for greatness, you should live up to your potential, follow your true nature."

"Now you sound just like Xena"

"Xena, yes, I have already reached out to her, she is my ancestor after all. She was so far, how shall I say…..less than responsive to my influence. Given that in the future she will be a stumbling block to my plans, I guess she will have to die. You don´t have a problem with that do you? Father told me a bit about the history of you two."

"If you want to destroy Xena, you have my full blessing." Hope laughed. "But you won´t lay a hand on my mother, is that clear? I am the only one to make her suffer."

"Yes, yes...I understand. No harm will come to Gabrielle, it's okay. How about my offer? Think about everything we could do. With you, me and my troops we could reduce mankind to rubble. We can conquer this world and then create a new future in our own image."

"If I remember right, father had some specific ideas about the future," Hope suggested. "How does he fit into all this? "

"He doesn´t," she replied.

xxx

_At __about the same time, in the outside world._

A man had just arrived in Potidaea, a stranger. He appeared in the middle of the night and was knocking on the first door he could find. He was asking questions, looking for Hercules. It was known by now that the half-god had returned to Greece.

There were rumors going on, that he, along with Xena and a few others, had stopped the demonic army that had been terrorizing the entire northern area of Greece and the neighboring countries, something that even Ares' united forces had failed to do. People had supposedly seen them taking over and even residing in the fortress from where this terrible force had started their attacks.

With the help of some of the neighbors, he was now standing before Lila´s house, only a short time later.

At the banging on the front-door, they all awoke very quickly. Gabrielle was the first and opened.

"Yes, what is it?" she asked. "What do you want at this time?"

Behind her, Xena and Hercules had just arrived.

"I am sorry, but there is something important," a woman who lived in a house close to them told them. "This man is looking for Hercules," she introduced the stranger. The man, they noticed, was looking like a simple villager.

"I am Hercules," the half-god said.

"Thank Eli that I have found you," the man answered.

"Who are you?" Xena asked him.

"My name is Kayus, I am from Tegeia, a village several miles north from here. You have to help us."

"What happened to you?" Hercules wanted to know.

"It was two days ago...a creature appeared...a monster! It attacked my home."


	10. Chapter 10: Agreement

**Chapter 10**

Hope had been listening to what the other Child of Darkness had been telling her. She could barely believe what she was hearing.

"Do I understand this right? You plan to go against father´s designs for the future? You want to conquer this world here and now and practically erase the time where you come from?!" she exclaimed.

"You should not act so surprised, you have turned against him as well, after all."

"Not like this," she replied. "I disagreed with him on some matters and with his methods. So I decided to support the other side. Father knows my reasons. In the end he has accepted my choice, even if he certainly doesn't agree to it. But what you are planning now...that goes too far."

"In my way, it will all turn out even better in the end..." Adrianna replied, "well, at least for us," she smiled. "Even father will see that in the end." she shrugged.

"You think you know better than he does?" Hope asked her incredulous. "You are insane sister. Do you have any idea what he will do with you? He will destroy you, he will completely crush your mind and soul and will drop what is left of you into a forgotten dimension. That means if he even bothers to deal with you personally and not send someone else to do it, after Hercules, Xena and the others are finished with you."

"Father is busy with his struggle against the Light. Till he finds the necessary time to deal with me, things will already be done. And then, seeing what I have created, he will learn to appreciate it."

"I have already seen many cases of arrogance," Hope responded, "but you are truly on the top."

"I see, so it is senseless to talk to you," she replied grimly. "It is obvious that you are not interested in this chance. You will come to regret this decision in the future `sister´."

The attack came suddenly and vigorous and it was strong. It was a mental assault. Hope was barely able to shield herself, but she **was** able to do it.

And yet, the mental powers of the other dark child were terrifying. Of course, they had to be if she used them to control the creatures, all of them. Her telepathic abilities had probably been the main focus of her training. They might be even greater than her own.

A few moments later, she woke up. Hope was lying motionless on her bed, starring at the ceiling.

xxxxxxx

The man, his name he said was Kayus, was just telling them about what was happening in his village.

"What kind of creature was it that attacked you?" Hercules asked him.

"It was…" for a short moment, the man hesitated. "….a monster like it has never been seen before. There are beings that hold some resemblance to it, yes...and so, he started naming the closest thing to it that he could think of.

"It...it was a Dragon," he said.

"A dragon," Hercules repeated. He was thinking about the descriptions Ares had given to them, of the winged beings that had been caged up on the metallic fortress up there in space. It had to be it.

"I will help you," he finally said to the man.

He and Xena exchanged a knowing look.

"Can I talk to you for a moment?" she adressed him.

Both of them walked a few meters away.

"You've heard it," he told her. "This village is only a few days from here. It had to be one of **them**."

"Yes, but you do realize that we need you here, right?" she said to him.

"I know, but you understand as well as I do that this is obviously one of the same beings Ares has just described earlier. They have already spread this far. This means we have to separate."

Xena nodded reluctantly.

"That doesn´t mean I have to like it," she responded.

"I will try to be back as quickly as possible," Hercules stated.

"But it will probably still be too late," Gabrielle, who had just joined them, pointed out. "You know that we will start to look for them tomorrow and till you are back..."

"I know," he replied, "but we have no other choice. We can not allow them to attack other villages or to get away from this area at all. If the creatures manage to spread over the borders, this region and all of Greece might be in great danger."

"Creatures?" Kayus, who overheard them talking, asked.

"Let's just say that the monster that appeared in your village is not the only one out there" Xena clarified.. "This town here is also threatened by them."

xxx

Gabrielle had just left them. She was on her way to Ares and Eve, to inform them what happened. She was right about to open the door to Ares' room, where the god was currently living in when she heard something moving behind her.

She turned around to see that she was looking into her own face.

"Hope," she said, recognizing her.

"Mother, I think there is something I should tell you about."

"You are not the only one," Gabrielle replied. "A man has just arrived. As it looks, the creatures have already reached the neighboring villages. They seem to be spreading over the entire region."

"This is no surprise," Hope told her. "It is actually far worse than that. My sister is planning to use her creatures to conquer the entire world. This place here is only the beginning."

"How do you know that?"

"Let's just say she contacted me."

"I understand," Gabrielle said. "Ares," she called out as both of them finally entered the room.

"I am here! " he responded, a bit impatiently. The Olympian was lying on the bed. He wasn´t asleep, of course not, he was a god after all. Sleep was for his kind something completely different than to the mortals. The only reason he even needed the bed was to recover from his injuries. By now, he was almost fully healed, and back to his old strength, mainly thanks to Hope´s help…..This meant however the greatly dismished strength he had in the future.

"What can I do for you ladies?" he asked them.

"We have just welcomed a new guest," Gabrielle told him. "There are a few things you should know about him."

xxx

A short time later, Gabrielle had informed him about the attack on the other village and the arrival of the man who had arrived from there. Hope had additionally told both of them about her `meeting´ with her sister.

Ares took in the information without saying much. If he were honest to himself, none of it came as a real shock.

She was using her creatures to attack other locations and widen her influence, someone from this places came here, looking for help from Hercules. No great surprise indeed. This new Daughter of Darkness had also contacted Hope and attempted to sway her to her side. It wasn't anything that they shouldn´t have anticipated.

"And Hercules?" he asked. "I guess that means that he will be leaving us soon."

"Yes, Xena's already with him, helping him prepare everything for their trip tomorrow. She is having second thoughts about this, herself, of course." Gabrielle told him. "We need Hercules' help here as well, after all."

Ares nodded.

"But he is right," he told them. "We can not allow these creatures to reach other places, to possibly hide there and in the worst case breed even more of their kind. All of Greece would be in danger, the entire world even. Hope, you said it yourself that this Adrianna is planning exactly that. We need to stop her and this spawn before it comes to this."

"He is right," she confirmed. "Even if we do stop her, what if the creatures still manage to infest other areas and spread further and further from there? Adrianna told me that she is controlling them with her mental powers, but that doesn´t mean that they can´t possibly continue without her directions."

"You mean we could defeat her and it would still all be lost?" Gabrielle stated.

"Yes exactly. And there is something else, there is a chance that father might get active."

"What?"

"Think about it. This is just as much a threat for his plans for the future like it is for every living being on this planet."

"I have never thought about it like this," Gabrielle admitted.

"There is also another point," Ares said to them. "Hercules met this Adrianna in the future and I am pretty sure that he had never met her before. So it is probably safer if he weren't there if we face her, unless you want to risk undermining the future and possible destabilizing the entire universe."

"But he already knows about her, doesn´t that endanger the future you know of anyway?" Hope pointed out.

"Not necessarily," he replied. "I have never told you exactly from what time period I came, the only thing I said was that there was a great war going on. So even if he knew that he might meet a being like her at one point, he couldn´t know when and under which circumstances.

Come to think about it, he was more than a bit uneasy that he found out about the woman who had become the mother of this creature. He showed me a file about her on purpose, and at that time I thought it was only because she looked just like Xena. But maybe he knew more than he let us know"

"What is a file?" Gabrielle asked him.

"A list of informations about a certain person," he answered.

"That means Hercules will leave us and it is probably the right decision and that for an entire line of reasons," she resumed.

"Yes."

"Thank you for your input Ares," she told him. "Come", she said to Hope, "let us see what we can do for the rest of the night. To be honest, I don´t think I will be able to get some sleep after everything that happened. Maybe Xena could use some help."

"If you two don´t know how to occupy yourself for the rest of the night, I might have some idea," the war god suggested.

"Yes?" Gabrielle asked curiously.

"Well, I am already feeling much better and you see I could really use some company here on my bed now. To be honest I have missed Xena by far the most of you, but since she is busy right now I thought you might be interested Gabrielle or you Hope or maybe both of you want to spend some...mother-daughter time with me," he offered.

He layed back and gestured with smile to the place on the bed beside him.

Both of the identical looking women rolled their eyes in a very similar manner.

"It is obvious that he is truly on the road to recovery," Gabrielle said.

"Clearly," Hope commented.

xxxxxxx

_The following morning_.

Hercules, Iolaus and the man who had arrived the night before were preparing to leave.

Kayus had been talking by now a few hours to Hercules and got a bit of an impression on him. He had to admit that the legendary hero was not exactly what he had expected. But that didn´t mean that he was any less impressive.

Hercules was not so much different from a normal human being. Aside from the fact that he should have been an old men and looked barely older than in his thirties, he was more than ok. The half-god actually turned out to be a rather modest person, a detail rather surprising if you consider who he was and what was his bloodline. He was actually a guy who Kayus decided he could like.

Ironically, the equally famous or maybe infamous, but completely human, Warrior Princess Xena, by what he had seen of her, seemed to be a far more full of herself than the actual half-god. Still, she was there and she was willing to help, even if it was not his own village but this one.

This just led to another frightening fact that he found out after he had arrived here. There were other creatures out there, similar to the one who had attacked his home and as it looked, there was an entire group of warriors here to fight them. Even the War God Ares himself had been mentioned at one point. It was truly staggering.

They were just getting ready to leave, he, Hercules and his friend, the man named Iolaus. By what he had heard about him, he should have been as well over sixty years old but looked half his age. Maybe he was another half-god, he speculated.

Kayus thought by now that he had seen everything. But nothing would have prepared him for the next surprise.

Suddenly, right in front of them, a woman appeared in a burst of flames. The woman was dark haired, tall and quite beautiful, but it was also quite clear that she wasn´t human.

Everybody present froze in place for a few moments as they saw her appearance.

"You are back, I see," Hercules finally addressed her. It was clear that he had seen her before.

"What do you want?" Xena asked her aggressively.

"I want to talk to you," the demon `Sin´ replied. "Some things have changed since we last met."

"We are well aware of that," she responded.

"I know, you want to stop the Child of Darkness who arrived here from the future…Well, I have news for you….so do I "

"Why would you want to help us?" Eve, who was standing a few meters from her, asked.

"Oh, this is not just about helping you, certainly not. The Darkness has certain plans for the future of this world, as you all know. This new arrival however endangers them all. That is the reason I am here."

"Why should we trust you?" Eve demanded to know, interrupting her.

Hercules and Iolaus shared a short look at her question.

"Trust?" the demon asked. "You should realize that it is as much in the interest of my side to put an end to her as in yours. Do you realize how far the intentions of this Adrianna truly go? She plans nothing else than to bring humanity to extinction and replace them with this breed of demon-hybrids that you have met. Plans and designs developed over many centuries would be lost if she succeeds."

"Never mind the countless innocents who would die," Iolaus commented sarcastically.

"That is more your worry. But now that you've mention it, you are right, it would be really a shame if they all died before they had the chance to corrupt themselves and make their way to Hell," the demon responded.

"That is enough," Xena called out. "You say you want to help us against her?"

"She has gone rogue," she stated, "the same sort of rogues that Dahak had originally resurrected you to eliminate Xena. You see, even now you are still fulfilling his purposes."

"Don´t even try that one with me," Xena replied coldly. "I had enough of the manipulations of your kind for at least three lives."

"But that doesn´t change the fact that most of this `manipulations´, as you call them, actually consisted of just telling the truth, right Xena?" she asked smugly.

"Stop this now," Hercules spoke up. "Given the situation, we accept your help, for now" he told her, "but if you try anything...anything, then we will continue on our own."

"Hercules," Iolaus stated uneasily.

"I know," he said, "but we don't have much of a choice, really. We need to find and stop them, and quickly or countless people will die. Besides, you know she would have just gotten involved anyway and this way we can at least keep an eye on her."

"I have to agree with Hercules," Xena said, "even if I hate to admit it."

"You see, you have made a wise decision." the demon smiled.

"There is one other thing," Hercules told her.

"Yes?"

"Could you please stop looking like Serena? It's …distracting…"

"Of course," she replied in a friendly tone.

Before their eyes she changed back into the blonde form they had seen her in earlier.

The villager Kayus felt how his jaw dropped.


	11. Chapter 11: attack

**Chapter 11**

Hercules was standing in the middle of the village. Around him there was the same scene of destruction and chaos that he had already seen so many times before.

The creature itself was flying in the air above him. It was a large winged monster with a reptilian like skin, very much like Kayus' description of a dragon. Unknown to Hercules it was one of the two creatures that his older self had already seen inside of a giant cage on the space station, the one that had survived the crash.

Around him, the villagers were fleeing for their lives. A few of them didn´t make it. At least three dead bodies were lying on the streets or under the rubble, one old man, a woman, one little girl. Despite their best efforts they could not prevent this. The attack came too sudden and too brutally.

xxx

Hercules and Iolaus had arrived just a few hours before, together with Kayus, the native of this village who had led them here. As they had been told, this were not the first victims of the beast, by far not.

During its first attack the creature had already slaughtered an entire family who had lived at the outside borders of the settlement and burned their house to the ground. Then it just left. The very next morning though, it returned and actually ate a young woman in front of the horrified villagers. It was the same day that Kayus got on his way to find Hercules.

Meanwhile, the intelligence who was controlling the monster, the same that was controlling all of the creatures, was close by and observing everything in glee. She had achieved what she wanted. Her enemies were about to be split up.

They were still involved in their conversation with the village leaders, informing them about these events, as the next attack came. The `Dragon´ came flying down from the sky, grabbed the very first people he could find with his claws and cleaved them open or hit them with its long tail, shattered their bones and threw them meters through the air.

Soon after, Hercules and Iolaus came outside to help, and the very next moment the monster began to spit fire at the village. The fight between the creature and the two heroes had started.

xxx

Hercules lifted up a large piece of wooden debris that was broken off from one of the buildings and used it to block another wave of flames that was sent at a group of fleeing villagers. Then he threw the still burning object at the monster with all his strength.

The creature let out a terrible growl as it was hit.

Several of the houses around them, that the creature had hit with its flames, were already standing in fire. If they didn´t stop this attacker soon, there would be nothing left of this village, so much was certain.

Meanwhile Iolaus was assisting him. He had already been helping to bring some of the running men, women and children out of the direct danger. Now he was bringing a number of spears that the place had in storage.

The next moment, the creature used the chance to grab another villager, a woman, with its claws, slice open her body and threw her dying form away. Hercules saw this and decided with grim determination to end the fight as quickly as possible.

In some distance stood the female demon with whom they had formed a temporally alliance. She was looking, seeming not concerned at all about the ongoing destruction of the village.

During all this, the being named Adrianna, who was actually miles away, was observing the events through the eyes of the creature. Her mental powers allowed her to control it and direct the assault. She was standing on a hill-side far away from the battle and she was watching it with a smile on her face. Everything was going exactly as planned.

But then, something happened that she had not anticipated. She recognized another presence, one that had skillfully concealed itself up to this point. It wasn´t Hope, but another being quite similar to both of them. Now the presence was getting active. It started to wrestle control of the creature from her.

The now distraught beast was hanging disoriented in the air, as the mental command finally broke.

Hercules however used this chance. He took one of the spears that Iolaus had just brought and threw it at his opponent, aiming at what he hoped was a weak point in its chest. The entire body of the creature was being protected by a thick armor of scales, but these seemed to be somewhat weaker in this point, by what he saw during the fight. He could only hope he was right.

The spear slammed into the body of the creature, thrown with the whole strength of a half-god, it pierced through the protecting scales – quite easily too- and buried itself into the flesh of the monster. With a both pained and frightening scream, it fell down to the earth.

Both Hercules and Iolaus moved quickly. They took some of the remaining spears and damaged the wounded beast even more. Finally Hercules drew the sword he had taken along for this battle, ran forward and used it to cut the creature´s throat. The monster sank down, dying.

A few kilometers away, Adrianna flinched in anger as she saw what had happened. This was not part of the plan! She briefly thought about the possibility that those two would defeat her agent, but not this quickly. They were supposed to be involved there for at least a few days. But now it was all in vain.

xxx

"Good work Hercules, Iolaus" they heard someone congratulating them.

They saw that their compatriot- simply called Sin- was walking towards them.

"You could have done a little more," Iolaus told her.

"I have disrupted the dark child's mental connection," she responded, "Without that, it would have been much more difficult for you to take it down. You could even say it was me who gave you the chance to finish it off."

"Okay okay," Hercules responded. "So we've killed one of them, but the others are still out there. What about them?"

"There are three others as far as I know, but from a different type. This one however was by far the strongest of the four that landed in this time. That is unless they manage to reproduce, then you will have a far worse problem than you do now. Then you will face an entire army of these beings."

"I understand."

"There is only one question, what will you do now? You know about the danger if you return to the others. What will happen if you go against an enemy who you should not have met until thousands years in the future? Not even I can tell that for sure. If you get involved, you might disrupt the flow of time and destabilize this world. But you also know the risk of letting them fight on their own. Iif these creatures spread any further, they will become a threat to this entire world, not to mention that this might cause the time-disruption anyway."

"You have told me this before," he answered, "and Ares did as well, several times actually."

"And, tell me, what will you do?" she asked him.

xxxxxxx

_Potidaea, nine days later_

The appearance of the creatures terrorizing the region around Gabrielle´s home-town and the appearance of the Ares from the future had taken place nearly two weeks ago now. During the first days after they had found the injured God, they started the systematic search of the entire area. So far however, they found very little.

One of the people of Potidaea who were helping them had suddenly vanished on the second day. It took them a few hours to find what was left of him. His right arm had been ripped out and his rips laid open. It was obvious that he had found what they were looking for, he must have come across of at least one of the beasts, but it had cost him his life. He was not able to inform anyone else either. Xena and her group had been able to follow the trail of the creature for several miles after finding the remains, but in the end they lost it somewhere in the wilderness, It was as if the being had just vanished into thin air.

What they didn´t knew was that this was actually quite close to the truth. The larger creature, the one able to fly, had just grabbed it, lifted it off the ground and flew away with it. Of course the humans had now way to realize this.

The demon Sin had by now returned to them, together with Iolaus. Hercules however had not, just like they had expected. Both Ares and their new demonic `ally´ had convinced him to stay out of the coming fight to avoid endangering the future. Ultimately he listened to them, even if Xena didn´t exactly like it. All in all, she understood their reasoning, she had to admit. Ares explained to her that the consequences might be unpredictable if they carelessly changed coming events, especially events that led to his presence here in the first place, paradoxon, as he had called it.

What would happen if Hercules came and would fight their enemy, who he was not supposed to meet until thousands of years later? That was a good question. Would this endanger their world? Would it cause another disaster and make everything worse than it already was? Who could truly answer that question? One thing was clear however, she had watched the last times when the universe had been thrown out of balance and she didn´t want to see a repeat, not at any price in the world. So she reluctantly gave in, in the end.

For the rest of the time, nothing major happened. Aside from this one incident, their search had so far turned out to be fruitless. The area in question was simply too big and they had absolutely no idea how far away or in what direction Adrianna and her creatures were hiding. That meant they literally had to check every square meter in this part of the land.

They didn´t find them, because they obviously didn´t want to be found. By what their new ally had told them, the creatures might have created a nest. They were breeding a new generation, to multiply their numbers. If they succeeded, they had been told, the problem that they were facing now would become many times worse.

During these days, Hope and the other demon had had often been sitting together for hours. They said they had some kind of plan to locate their enemy. By what they had told them, they were trying to combine their own powers to find the presence of the other Child of Darkness and her servant-creatures. But they also said that she was trying to shield herself, so it wouldn´t be easy. Whatever they did, they had been doing it for days now. So far they didn´t exactly manage to succeed in their mission, either. But they had come closer. They claimed that they had narrowed the place down to a certain degree.

It would cost them a bit more time, maybe a week, maybe only a few more days, but they would find them. At least that's what they told the others.

So far, there were only four of these monsters. But if the eggs they were laying had the chance to hatch, they would turn into dozens, and later on in hundreds and then thousands. Every single one of them would be as dangerous as a half-god or a large group of armed men. They had to stop this menace before it was too late.

xxx

Today however they once again returned unsuccessful. The night had already broken and it was quickly getting dark.

This meant the time had come.

Adrianna had been watching the attempts of her enemies to find her for several days now. She knew they would find her very soon if things continued like this, so she decided to act first. They were hiding themselves. Right now they were close to their enemies, closer than they suspected.

All her attacks till now had only single purpose: to distract her foes and if possible, break them up. The second part had, as she admitted to her own surprise, actually worked. Hercules had not returned with the others. This was definitely a thing to her advantage. Good so far, but she didn´t know for sure why he had chosen that option. If she had to guess, it was probably because he didn´t want to accidentally change the future into an unfavorable direction.

Not that his efforts would have much meaning. The thought caused her to smile. When she was finished, the future they came from would no longer exist and a new one,** her** future would be drawn.

This was the beginning. She and her creatures had been waiting.

The night had now fully begun. It was completely dark and fog had risen up. For a human being it was nearly impossible to see even a few meters away into the distance.

That was exactly what they had been waiting for. The entire town was asleep, with the exception of a number of guards. While nobody was able to notice them, they were moving closer to their prey. Despite the size of the beasts they were able to move without a noise if necessary.

The people of Potidaea had built up a defense ring around their town in addition to the walls, but that was not much of a hindrance for her servants.

Coming directly out of the dark, the first of the creatures reached one of the two men who were standing guard and, with a giant leap bit open his throat. Both of the beings could see in the dark, so they had an even greater advantage over these villagers as they would have had during the day.

The second beast opened its mouth and spit a strange liquid into the other guard's face. As it touched his skin, his flesh was literally eaten from his skull by the acrid substance. He was howling in terrible pain until Adrianna finally snapped his neck using her telekinetic powers.

Getting through the gates was easy for them. The creatures were now entering the town. They were slowly and silently walking along the streets, looking for new victims. And they found one very quickly.

An armed man was coming out of his house. It seemed he had heard the screams of the guard and was attacked by them as soon as he opened the door. He never stood a chance.

Meanwhile, Adrianna was going her own way. Just like the other attacks, this one too was only a distraction. Their only purpose was to keep her enemies occupied until the next generation of her soldiers would hatch. This was all that mattered.

So while her creatures were busy terrorizing Potidaea, she would go looking for her real target.

xxx

Xena woke up as she heard the screams coming from outside. She knew instantly what was going on. They were attacking the town.

She had feared that this would happen.

"Gabrielle, wake up," she shouted, "...Gabrielle, Ares, Hope. We are under attack."

They all were nearly instantly awake.

xxx

Two of the beasts had by now broken into one of the houses. Under Adrianna´s mental directions, they had broken the door and were now killing everybody who lived inside, one man, his wife and the children.

xxx

Xena, Gabrielle, Hope, Ares and Iolaus had all joined the armed men of Potidaea to defend their home. They monsters were sneaking through the town and attacking everyone who came across them.

As ususal, Eve didn't get involved into the fight. Instead she helped protect the defenseless, which meant most of the women, the old and the young.

She and a woman from the neighborhood, one of the ones who had led Kayus to Lila´s house 12 days before, had just brought a group of children to what they hoped was a safe place. Now they were trying to bring more people out of harm's way.

Suddenly however, Eve´s partner was gripped by an invisible force. She could only watch in horror as the helpless woman was lifted off the ground and was gasping for air.

Xena´s daughter saw a figure walking towards her.

"Stop it," she yelled at the being who she knew was responsible for what was happening with the other woman. She had no doubt who was standing before her.

But the stranger didn´t stop. Eve tried to move forward and help her, but she couldn´t. It was as if her feet were nailed to the ground. The same force that was killing this woman was also stopping her from interfering, she realized. Instead, she had to watch how the victim after a short time stopped struggling and fell motionless to the ground, dead. Eve was sure about that. She had seen enough corpses, most of them by her own hand.

"Now we are alone," the figure before her stated.

As she came closer, Eve realized to her shock that the stranger really looked nearly exactly like her own mother and very young, not much more than a teenager.

"You are Eve, aren´t you? " the girl said to her. "I have heard a lot of you, little puppet."

Eve heard her voice speaking to her and at the same time she felt her mind reaching out to her own.

xxx

Xena, Gabrielle and Hope had now reached the house that was being raided by the two monsters and together with a few of the men started to fight them.


	12. Chapter 12: Mutual Trust

**Chapter 12**

Xena, Gabrielle and Hope were doing their best to fight off the couple of monsters.

They had just reached the last house that was being attacked by two of the creatures and what they found was a bloodbath. Everybody who had lived there had been slaughtered. All they saw were the torn apart bodies and the blood, splattered on the walls, and additionally, the two beasts- their heads were still bowed over some of the scattered remains of their victims and...eating.

Xena instantly attacked them with her typical loud battle cry. She threw her Chakram that was however deflected by the scale-armor of one of the creatures. As the same being was spitting it´s acid at her a few moments later, she managed to dodge, but the hit came far closer than she would have liked.

Behind her, a part of the house was being destroyed by the vicious substance.

Next to her, Hope threw the other beast with a telekinetic push against the next wall.

"Let us get out of here," Xena told the others, "we need more room to fight them."

At her words, their group started to retreat.

xxx

Meanwhile, in the other streets of the town, Ares and Iolaus, together with a few local men, were hunting for the last of the three creatures. The monster was cunningly trying to avoid them in the dark. Despite that, the War God could sense his presence and the fact that it was pitch black was also no problem for him.

He quickly realized that the beast was closing up to Xena´s position. They would have to hurry up.

xxx

The two creatures had followed them outside, just as they had hoped. Xena, Gabrielle and Hope were now trying to surround their opponents and attack them from two sides at once. The beasts were incredible resistant. With regular weapons like swords, it was very hard to do even slight damage to their rock hard scale-armor, though. To that came that they had to a great part of demonic heritage and their physical strength was literally super-natural.

Ares had truly not exaggerated, they were living weapons.

Their greatest asset so far was Hope´s telekinesis. It had helped to keep them at distance, but even her power had gradually failed to cause any real damage. The globes of fire that she had thrown at their enemies had so far only left some superficial scorch marks.

Moments later, they heard a noise, a growl coming from the street behind them. They realized that the third creature had appeared. Now** they** were the ones who were being surrounded.

And then, right in the nick of time, Ares and Iolaus arrived. The two had been tracking the last creature down, just like they had agreed upon before the fight had started. Their chances were now looking much better.

One of the beasts jumped forward and attacked them instantly. Xena and Gabrielle were able to avoid its claws, but the man next to her was cut down. His face, his chest and his shoulder were torn apart. Both, the Warrior Princess and the Bard, could now see the mutilated body, while still laying most of their concentration on the dangerous enemies around them. They knew, if they had only been a bit slower, this could have easily been them.

Ares threw a ball of energy at the creature closest to him. It left a visible burn mark on its scaled form, but that was about everything. He let out an angry hiss. If only he had his old powers now, this fight would be already over. At the same time, Iolaus parried an attack of the enemy with his sword.

Another one of the villagers with them was hit. One of the beasts suddenly leaped forward and caught him with its jaws and bit deep into the body of the struggling and screaming man. A few moments later, his voice died down and his body went limp as the creature crushed his bones.

Then however the being was struck. Ares was not the only one with powers and not the only one who was thinking about their limits. Hope for her part had enough. She decided to go all out. Her usual attacks had not brought much, so she chose to try something new. She knew her powers had still more potential that she had never explored before. It had especially been during her time with Caine and the other immortal warriors of her father, that she started to train her abilities to new limits and to use them in new creative ways.

That was exactly what she was doing now. Instead of using her telekinesis in the usual way, to just move objects, she did something else. She concentrated her power on a single, relativ small point, on the scale-armor of the creature next to her, the same that had just killed the villager.

The beast let out a terrible howl of pain and rage as the first of the scales of its metal-hard outer skin were beginning to break under her concentrated strength and its dark colored blood started to flow. As her powers had broken a large part of its protective armor on the left side of the being was destroyed so it caused a large injury; she finally stopped her assault. Instead, Hope used her telekinesis to push the creature to the ground and immobilize it for a few moments.

"Xena, now! " she shouted at the warrior.

The Warrior Princess reacted instantly. She ran forward and thrust her sword right through the shattered part of the scale-armor into the creature's chest. With another terrible growl, the monster finally died.

Through her mental connection with her servants, Adrianna saw everything that had happened and it angered her to no end that she had lost yet another valuable soldier. She had reached nearly everything that she wanted here, so she decided let them retreat.

But then, she was met with another surprise. Two more figures came out of the dark. Through the eyes of her minions, she recognized them. One was the female demon they had formed an alliance with and the other was...Hercules...that was impossible. The half-god had not returned with the others, she knew this.

At this point, while the creatures were distracted by the two newcomers, Ares used the chance for another attack. He had seen what Hope had done and it gave him an idea. The God focused, he gathered his remaining strength. Instead of normal attacks, he concentrated all his power into one single wave of energy that he send against his opponent.

This creature too screamed in helpless rage. Its entire body was embraced by blinding light as Ares attacked it. A few seconds later, it was over. The War-God was at the limit of his strength.

When the assault stopped, the monster was still standing there, but its armored skin seemed to be badly damaged and to some parts even molten by the energy. Ares bowed down, holding his own knees to support himself. He was shaking a bit and it was obvious just how tired he was.

"This is your chance, Hercules," he said to his brother.

The half-god made a giant leap to attack, which the beast was trying to avoid, but much like Hope earlier, their ally Sin was using her own telekinesis to hold it back. Hercules rammed a sword directly down into the neck of the creature and nearly severed its head. As its body sank down, the third creature was about to attack the weakened Ares, but the half-god reacted very quickly and tried to stop it.

When Hercules' blade clashed with the claws of the monster, he was able to avert the attack to some degree and probably save the War God´s life. But a second strike of its razor sharp claws hit his side and caused a bleeding wound. The beasts were able to kill gods, they all remembered what he had told them.

Then suddenly, the creature was caught by another telekinetic attack, this time once again from Hope. She too was now looking tired and worn out. As a result, it flew nearly twelve meters through the air and crashed into the walls of one of the houses, before it braced itself up and retreated into the night.

In some distance to them, in another part of the town, Adrianna´s anger now knew no bounds.

"It worked exactly as planned," Xena said to the others.

"Not exactly," Gabrielle commented, looking at the dead men and the wounded Ares.

"It was clear that there could be some losses," Xena replied. "We couldn´t have prevented that. Given the circumstances it went as well as we could hoped for. Your plan was good," she said to the demon Sin.

"Shielding Hercules' presence from her worked well, she was convinced that he had left us, but it did cost me a great part of my strength," she responded.

"There is only one of these monsters left now and it is weakened," Xena told them.

"So are we," Ares remarked.

"**She** is here," Hope suddenly spoke up, it was clear to all of them who she meant, "very close. She must have come here along with her servants. She is not longer shielding herself now."

"Why would she do that?" Gabrielle asked.

"She is using her mental powers now, to a very high level. She can not do both."

"But why, if she knows that you can find her then?"

"Where is she?" Xena demanded to know. She sounded distracted. It was clear that a suspicion was rising inside her.

"There." Hope pointed in the direction where she felt the presence of the other dark child.

"Eve," Xena said after a few moments, visibly alarmed. "We have to go."

She nodded quickly to Hercules, who replied her gesture.

Xena, Gabrielle and Hope began to run. The wounded Ares followed them in a slower pace. Only Hercules and Iolaus staid behind.

xxxxxx

It didn´t take long for them to reach their destination. What they saw was exactly what Xena had feared and hoped not to find.

A very young dark haired woman was walking casually through the shadowed street, barely lighted by the flicker of a few torches. Next to her, floating in the air, was Eve, struggling slightly against the telekinetic grip. As they came closer, Xena realized that she was looking into her own face.

They saw how a few of the townspeople, who were fleeing in fear from the monsters were running across her, obviously not really fully realizing in their panic who was standing before them. She casually snapped a woman´s neck with not more than a thought. Seeing what happened, a man drew a weapon against her, but he was thrown backwards by another telekinetic push.

"You! " Xena hissed as she recognized the dark child that she had so far only seen in her dreams.

She, Gabrielle and Hope were now standing in front of their real enemy. Next to them, Sin suddenly appeared a few moments later. Ares was only a few meters behind them. They would have their opponent cornered, if it were not for the fact that Eve was in her hand.

"Mother...I.." she tried to speak, while hanging in the air, but she struggled for her words and she found it impossible to continue. It seemed that the invisible grip barely let her breath and so forced her to stay silent for the most part.

"Xena," the `girl´ greeted her, "it is nice to meet you in person, this time. As you see, I have already introduced myself to your daughter."

"Let her go," Xena ordered. Her voice was cold and angry.

"You know Xena, this is all because of you," she replied. "If only you had been a bit more responsive to the encouragements I have send you in your dreams, this would not have been necessary."

"I said let her go," Xena warned her. The girl just smiled in return.

"If you come any closer, I will break her neck, just like the last one," she said.

Behind her, they saw the last remaining of the creatures coming out of the dark.

"I am angry with you, you know," she told them, "very angry. In the future Ares and Hercules ruined everything for me and now it seems that you want to do the same thing again here. You have already killed nearly all my servants! ."

"You are the ones who attacked us in the first place," Gabrielle answered. "Your servants are killing innocent people."

"I can not allow you find the nest," she replied with a grin. "The next generation will be born and then you will be destroyed. These `innocent people´, do you really care about these insects? You should´t worry, their fate is to die anyway and **they will** when my servants spread over this world. You could have also been a part of it, sister," she said to Hope, "but sadly you have refused."

Hope didn´t respond. She was trying to concentrate her powers, but she was too exhausted from the last fight. This moment she had no chance in a one on one confrontation, so she had to rely on the help of the others for now.

"Your father doesn´t agree with your plans," Sin addressed her instead.

"And that is why he sent you here right? He will see reason later, when he sees the empire that I will build up," she retorted.

The demon Sin formed a globe of fire in her hand, ready to attack.

"Remember, if you move, she dies," Adrianna reminded her.

"Stop," Gabrielle was trying to hold her back, "we can not attack. She will hurt Eve."

"And why should I care?" she asked coldly.

Xena turned around to them, but at the same time kept an eye on their enemy.

"I won´t let you endanger my daughter," she said to their demon ally.

"One life," she stated, " in return of…. how many do you think she will kill if she escapes? You have heard what she is planning."

"I have to admit, she has a point," Adrianna responded with a grin. "I am not Hope, you know. I have no Gabrielle to soften me up and fill my head with useless ideals," she said, looking at both, the Bard and her daughter. "No, I am from your blood," addressing Xena again, "and I was raised alone for the cause, I was born to conquer the stars. Your `friends´ have taken all that from me, so I will take everything else I can take instead and I will destroy everyone and everything that stands in my way. Your daughter will be the first from the long line of coming victims if you continue to cross me."

She raised her hand and Eve started to struggle more in her grip.

For a short moment, Gabrielle seemed to rush toward them, before Xena stopped her.

"Stay back," she told her.

But Sin didn´t listen and stepped forward. She was ready to throw the fireball, while Eve was still struggling for her life.

Xena now turned fully around, pointed her sword at her instead of Adrianna.

"I said nobody will put the life of my daughter at risk."

"The life of your daughter is all what is standing between us and the safety of the world," the demon replied, "and besides, you know as well as I do that Eve is a monster herself. The only reason why she is not raiding villages and killing people right now is that `Eli´s God´ has played with her mind. Maybe it is for the best if she dies as long as she is still innocent, don´t you think?"

"Shut up you bitch," Xena yelled.

"Well, well, it seems like the alliance is starting to show some cracks," Adrianna commented.

"Can't you see? She is playing you against each other," Ares said to them. "We have to stand together in this."

"Oh, these words are rich, especially coming from you, after the way you have helped us in our own time," she remarked.

"Ares, what is she talking about?" Gabrielle asked him sharply.

"I see, has he not told you the truth? Has he not told you that it was **he** who had started the war in the future? Father only took advantage of the situation he had already created. Hundreds of millions had been killed, entire worlds laid waste to, all in a conflict he had begun in the first place." she laughed.

Ares felt both Xena and Gabrielle glaring at him.

"And that is not everything," she continued. "Has he told you that it was you, Xena, who had originally imprisoned him in a tomb and that for nearly 2000 years? And all that in order to stop him from threatening this world with war. Father´s followers were the ones who freed him, because he knew perfectly well that it was only a question of time until he did something like that and play directly into our hands. And of course like a good little dog, when the time was right, that was exactly what he did."

Xena, Gabrielle and Hope were all completely sure that they had never seen the God of War so embarrassed, uneasy or ashamed like he was that very moment.

"I...I am sorry," that was all that he said.

"You could have told us this earlier," Xena accused him.

"Would it have changed anything? Would this have made things easier?" he asked.

"No, but it would have been a start, a sign of trust," Gabrielle said, "but I guess that was just too much asked for."

"So much for the mutual trust," Adrianna mocked them. "I think I will leave now. We both know that you will never be trying to stop me if it endangers the life of your `precious´ daughter, Xena."

She was laughing while she walked backwards, with Eve still before them, hanging in the air. They could still hear her laughter as she vanished into the night. The last creature followed her in a short distance, protecting its mistress.

Then suddenly, as soon as she was gone, Eve fell to the ground in front of them. She was breathing heavily, but otherwise she seemed to be okay.

"Eve?" Xena asked with obvious worry.

"Mother," she replied grimly.

Xena reached down to her and offered her a hand to help her up, but she just shrugged it aside. She stood up by herself. Her face looked as if it was made out of stone.

"Eve, is everything alright?" Xena asked her, still visible distraught.

After a few moments, her daughter's demeanor changed. She turned around and looked at Xena with her usual calm expression.

"It is okay mother," she answered, "I was just...angry."

xxxxxxx

_One day later_

The vicious attack from the day before had left deep scars in the town of Potidaea. Over twenty people had been killed by the latest count.

Xena and Ares were now standing side by side, with Gabrielle and Hope a few meters away from them, just like Lila and Sarah. They were all attending the funeral for the losses of this town. Eve had also been invited, but she excused herself. It was clear to them that she was not well.

Next to them, in some distance, the other people of the town were standing. Many of them had lost family and friends.

"You have been keeping a few nasty secrets Ares," Xena pointed out.

"I know," he replied. "You have to understand, I truly thought that telling you would made things worse. I needed your help to stop them and I needed it quickly. Telling you the whole truth would have only made you distrust me."

"I admit you have a point here," she agreed reluctantly. "That doesn´t mean I like it, I don´t like it at all," she made clear. "Ares," she looked at him, "is that all that you have been keeping from us? Is there anything else?"

"You know I can not give just give you too much information about the future, it would be too dangerous. There are things I just can not tell you," he responded.


	13. Chapter 13: Who am I?

**Chapter 13**

It was a small Greek village, not far away from the town of Potidaea. The morning was just breaking and the sun had not yet fully risen over the horizon.  
On a hillside close to the settlement there was a single figure. This being was standing motionless and appearing to be watching all over the area. Then the figure made a simple gesture with its hand and suddenly, several of the houses started to burn. The fire was breaking out at several places at once and spreading unnaturally fast.

From above, she was watching. She was seeing the fleeing people who were trying to leave their houses and felt something resembling a grim satisfaction.  
Hercules and the others had once again disrupted her plans. They had actually managed to convince her that the half-god was not longer around, only to let him strike on her when she had last expected. It was a cheap trick and she had fallen for it, she thought angrily. They were trying to destroy everything for her once again, she could feel it. But they would pay, every single one of them.

As soon as her new army hatched, every village on the face of this planet would be destroyed, just like this one. She would begin with Potidaea and Amphipolis. Beneath her she saw people running for their lives. A few of them didn´t make it. She watched them dying from the smoke or the fire. A smile formed on her face. She would have her revenge, not only on Hercules or Ares or Xena, on all of them, everyone. Soon the entire world would burn.

xxxxxxx

_Potidaea_

The last battle against the new dark child and her minions had ended one day ago. The dead were buried and the first of the damage was being repaired. They had survived the attack.

Everybody in town had been spending this last day in different ways, quite different ones. Some of them had lost people and were mourning, others were preparing for the next fight that they knew would come. And a few were doing once again completely different things.

Xena, Gabrielle and Ares had been talking a few times about his true role in the events in the future that had ultimately brought him there. They talked, but otherwise continued like before. It put a dent in the trust they had developed, as far as you can even develop trust at all with the God of War, whatever version of him. But they all knew it changed nothing about their situation right now. He was there, just like their enemy. But he was on their side and willing to help, at least for the moment.

They were preparing for their next search-trip, the final one if everything worked out as they hoped. Xena, Ares, Gabrielle, Hope and a number of townspeople, they would all go together. If they were honest they would rather have those people stay home. The risk would be great and none of them were actually trained fighters. Still, they had refused to let them go by themselves. Their town had taken great losses and damage and they wanted to get back at their attackers for it.

They were planning to find the last one of the creatures and the being who was controlling it. Both Hope and their demonic ally were quite sure that they would be able to find the location of the `nest´ over the span of the day. Of course they had been trying to do that for weeks now. They had been secluding themselves together for a great part of their time and doing whatever demons and half-demons were doing to `combining their powers´.

It was only a few hours ago that they had heard about the latest tragedy. A village a few miles north from them had burned down. They all knew all too well who was responsible for it.

The news reached them very quickly, given that they had been staying in close contact to their neighbor villages during the time of the search. People had been helping them to look over the region, this meant of course to some limits. As far as it was possible, they only accepted men who had at least some fighting experience. If there was one thing they did not want, was an entire groups of completely defenseless farmers walking around in the same area as those monsters. This would practically be asking to get them killed.

For the moment Xena, Gabrielle and Ares were sitting together. They all were getting ready for the coming fight. Only Hercules would stay out of it, this time for real. They were pretty confident that they could do it by themselves anyway, so there was no need to possibly risk the timeline by taking him along.  
Ares knew the latest revelations had shattered the trust those two had in him, the little that they had anyway, and he also knew that soon it would be shattered even more. But it was for the best, even if they hated him for it, he would accept it.

Just a few hours before, they had seen the group of people who had fled from the burned down village. These people had lost their homes, a few of them even their lives, as they had told them. The citizens of Potidaea agreed to let them stay there for the time being, until the treat was gone and they could start rebuilding everything.

It was clear to all of them that Adrianna was responsible for this, as some kind of petty revenge. Sin of course didn´t miss the chance to put the blame on Xena.

"We should have killed her when we had the chance, I have told you this."

This bitch, Ares thought. She was toying with her, she knew exactly what was going to come, maybe she had realized that right from the start.

Finally Hope and the other demon, the one who had just been on his mind, were coming to join them. With some luck, they would now maybe be reporting a full success.

xxxxxxx

Eve was in a bit unsure of how to continue from there. She had many questions running through her head. What was she to do? She was only sure about one thing, she had to get away from there. But what then? Where should she go? She would think about something, but for now she just had to leave that place.

For the entire day, she had been trying to keep herself at distance from the others. She knew something had happened to her. If she was honest, she also had a very good idea about what it was. For the entire day she had felt anger burning inside of her, the bitterness and the hatred, all the feelings that had seemed to be erased from her mind for the last three years. Or maybe they had just been suppressed, buried somewhere, very deep, she wasn´t sure.

What she knew was that it all came back to her, since the dark child had reached into her mind and had brought out everything that had been buried for so long. She remembered her exchange with her mother, Xena, the night before. Her pathetic attempts to `rescue´ her daughter. She had barely managed to keep herself from leashing out at her. All the `great things´ her mother had `done for her´, she recalled it all too vividly.

She looked at herself and felt disgusted by what she had become. A few years ago she had been one of the greatest and most infamous - she admitted- warriors on the entire continent. And now, a useless pacifist, someone who was standing aside while the others were fighting. She had wasted and smothered her talents and her skills, and what for?

And if she had to be a pacifist, could it not have at least been for a worthy cause? But no, she was a godsdamn Elisian. She still kept preaching this faith even after she found out how much of it was just based on faux and manipulation. Even after Michael tried to sacrifice her like some expandable pawn against that madman Caligula, she was still following his religion. She had no idea what had come over herself to stay loyal to a faith that had tried to have her killed like that. Being a pacifist was one thing, being stupid was another.

No, she corrected herself, she had a very good idea. She remembered what Dahak had once told her. He called her a puppet, just like his new daughter had done just now _"You have your decisions dictated to you by outside sources,"_ he said to her. _"You can be changed by either of us on a whim." _She remembered all too well.

xxxxxxx

They had finally succeeded. Hope and Sin had just told them that they had finally narrowed down the location on less than a half square mile. They could only hope that their enemy had not figured out what they had been doing. Their group would get on their way early in the morning.

xxx

Eve had been standing at some distance to them. They hadn´t seen her, she was quite sure of that. She didn´t hear everything that they said, but most of it. They were going after the dark child Adrianna. Good, she thought, she couldn't care less about what happened with that creature. But they would want to talk to her before they left.

She had to get away from here as quickly as possible. For the entire last day, she had done everything she could to avoid them, especially Hope. The demon-hybrid, she knew, would probably realize instantly what was happening to her and so would probably Ares, if he hadn't already noticed something. She was lucky that so far they had been pretty busy planning their attack, but that wouldn´t last forever, she knew that.

This demon, Sin, she already knew what was going on with her, she was sure of that. Eve had seen how she had been looking at her. But for some reason she had decided to keep her mouth shut, probably for the purpose of getting to Xena. Normally she would have liked that, but under those circumstances?...

Dahak was right, she thought, she was a pawn. Even now she wasn´t truly free, and she knew it. The only reason she was the way she was right now was because Adrianna wanted it in that way. She was using her, another one who did. That was what her mother had given to her, a life of manipulation and slavery. But she would get her revenge on all of them.

Every step she took was filled with hate and anger. She could barely restrain herself.

Who am I? she thought angrily.

The day was already over and it was getting dark once again. It was now or never, she thought.

She had considered to ask Ares for help. But if she was honest, she didn´t really trust this new improved version of the God of War. She remembered how he had asked Xena and Gabrielle to forgive him the night before. What kind of self-respecting god would ever grovel to a bunch of mortals like that? This Ares was not longer the one she knew.

Eve was walking through the outer areas of Potidaea, not far from the town´s border. The plan was simple- get a horse somewhere and get away from there.

But as she approached, she saw something, something interesting. It was Gabrielle´s niece Sarah and she was not alone. With her there was a young man. They had their arms wrapped around each other and they where kissing. Yes, very interesting. A smile formed on Eve´s lips, before she stepped out of the shadows.

She was looking around. The place was empty, there was nobody here beside them, good.

"Sarah," she greeted her friendly.

Both of them drove apart instantly and turned around, visibly startled by her sudden appearance out of a dark alley, but relaxed instantly as they recognized her.

"Eve," the blonde said.

"Let me guess?" she asked with a playful grin, "I've spooked you, right?"

"Yes, totally. I guess I am still a bit nervous from yesterday."

"Don´t worry, we all are," she replied. "It couldn't hurt to be a little bit careful. I don´t think we have been introduced," she said, looking at the young man.

"This is Marius," she answered, laying her arms around him once more. "We've known each other ever since we were children, before...Gurkhan. He was there for me a lot after my return and now...well, let's just say we want to get married soon."

"I see," Eve replied, "an old friend who over time had become more than that. The same old story, isn´t it? but a wonderful one. I am happy for you," she smiled at them. "I have to say you have made a great catch here," she said to the young man. "You will surely have a great time with her...now that Gurkhan has, how shall I say?...trained her well. It can never hurt to have an experienced slut around the house." Her expression had suddenly become cold and mocking.

Both Sarah and her fiancé starred at her in shock and anger, especially Sarah. She could not believe that Eve, the friendly, peaceful Eve that she had got to know, would say this to her. She had shared her feelings with this woman after her terrible experience in Gurkhan´s harem. They had talked about their dark pasts and the deeds that they wanted to leave behind...and now this?

"You…" she broke out. "...How dare you? " She made a few steps towards her.

That was a mistake.

Before she could see her move, before she even realized what happened, Eve had grabbed her hand, draw herself to her and was holding a dagger against her throat.

Marius saw this, even if he couldn't quite believe it and wanted to move to help Sarah.

"Don´t even try it little man," Eve told him. "You know who I am, you know who I was. I have killed more people than you could possible imagine. I could cut her to pieces before you can even move a limb in your untrained body. Freeze." she ordered him.

He, however very reluctantly, stood back. He knew he had no chance.

"Eve, why...why are you doing this?" she asked horrified. She felt how the blade was beginning to cut into her outer skin and she was starting to bleed.

"What could I say?" Eve replied, "ever since my experience yesterday I am a new woman or should I rather say I am back to my old self?" she remarked.

Sarah felt cold, realization entering her body. She knew about this, who Eve had once been, from the stories that both Gabrielle and Eve herself had told her.

"Sarah, Sarah, you and me we have a lot to talk about." the psychopath holding her continued. "We have to talk about your insolence."

"Insolence?" she asked.

"You know, our so called `shared dark past´ that we have been talking about. What brings you to the idea that you could ever compare yourself to me? I have wiped out entire towns and villages. I tortured and crucified women and children. I killed tens of thousands and bathed in their blood. I was the most powerful woman on the entire continent, the ward and later betrothed of the Emperor of Rome himself. And you think you are like me.

Tell me Sarah, back then, has Gurkhan used your services more than the rest of his harem? Oh I am sure he did, you were the head-wife after all, so you must have done something to earn this title. You are nothing but a very successful whore. Tell me, has Marius here already profited from your experience?"

"Stop it," the man growled at her, but she was only moving the dagger along Sarah´s throat and he didn´t say anything anymore.

"Okay, okay," Eve stated, "I guess in some sense you can call me a whore as well," she admitted. "After all I was doing both the Roman Emperor and the God of War at the same time. You see, even in **that** I am better than you."

"Eve, please" she said quietly. Despite the terrible verbal abuse she was unleashing over her, Sarah wanted to try to reach out to the Eve she knew. But if she was honest she doubted that this sadistic bitch could be reached. She didn´t want to beg, but she didn´t want to die either, not now, not like this and she didn´t want anything to happen to Marius. He had been the first in the town to accept her after hearing what had become of her and yet, he had always treated her as the person she wanted to be, he had always been there for her.

Like so many others did first hand, she knew from the stories what the woman Eve had turned into was capable of.

"Let her go," Marius pleaded. "I will do anything that you say." he said, taking a careful step closer to her.

"Well, isn´t this interesting?" Eve asked them. "I have to admit, this entire situation reminds me of something. Tell me Sarah, have you heard the stories of your aunt Gabrielle, especially the one how she lost her husband?" She noticed the change in Sarah´s expression. "Ah, I see you remember," she said. "Gabrielle, that means you of course, Perdicus and Callisto, we are all here. Why don´t we repeat history?"

"No, don´t..." she begged.

"If that is your wish," Eve told her in mock sympathy. "Then let us change the story a little bit. Goodbye Sarah," she whispered in her ear and moved her hand with the dagger.

That very moment Marius made a great leap forward in a desperate attempt to stop her. But before he knew it, Eve threw the weapon at him instead and the blade buried itself in his side.

Sarah screamed as she saw what had happened. But Eve drew the sword she was carrying with her and it took her one single movement to cut her throat. Her dying body stumbled against the wall behind her, her eyes were wide open. Then, she slowly sank down. Blood was flowing all over her unto the ground.

Eve saw that the man was still alive.

"You are still here, I see," said to him. "Congratulations, you played your role in our little drama perfectly. But you understand that I want my dagger back." She draw the weapon out of his body. "But I have something else for you." This being said, she began to cut into his face."

xxx

Eve was on her way out of the area of the town. She had stolen Marius' horse. That had been the reason she had been there in the first place after all. If she had tried to take her own, she would have risked running into Xena or Gabrielle. It was an annoyance, but on the other hand, it gave her the opportunity for some fun and to send a message to the others.

She knew that somewhere, Adrianna was laughing right now. Of course she did, but she had no intention to let herself be manipulated by her anymore.

xxx

It was a short time later that they had found the bodies. Marius calling for help had alarmed a few townspeople.

"No, no," Gabrielle´s sister cried out as she saw her daughter's dead body. Gabrielle was looking at the scene in complete horror.

Next to Sarah was lying a young man. Somebody had carved two long bloody lines into his face.

"Who, who did this?" Xena asked him.

"She..." he tried to talk, but couldn´t.

By Sarah´s body, she saw something lying, a piece of pergament, as it looked ripped off from one of Gabrielle´s scrolls. Something was written on it, in blood. Xena red it and she felt as if her world had broken into pieces.

_`I am Livia.´_


End file.
